maxi13 Reviews

Luca (2021)

watch it in italian with subtitles! so much better!!!

[18 June 2021]

I was a vespa-driver, i have been in venice more than 10 times, we had a house on ischia when i was a child and have been in this country nearly every year - and i eat pasta nearly every 2nd day, oh i LOVE italy (i am an austrian)... and i love Pixar from their early beginning. This should be the perfect conditions to love this movie, BUT it was disappointing. The story is somewhat flat and predictable, so it could have been done by any other animation studio. I loved Onward and Soul, both were great, but this one is just nice, but far away from being one of their best. At one point we switched the language from german to italian with subtitles and then it was much better, so maybe i would have liked it much more when we had done this from the beginning. (though german dubbing is really great, this time it adds so much to the movie if you also hear the italian language. Do this! Even if you hate reading subs!)

Privilege (1967)

time ahead... and now so much outdated

[3 June 2021]

This movie reminds me on a conversation with my father in the early 90s. I was a teenager and a huge fan of Nirvana and he, an old hippy in his 40s was not able to understand whats going on when we both together watched MTV for some minutes. He grew up in a world in which his parents generation were Nazis, he was extraordinary sensitive about this subject, but so was i, maybe BECAUSE of that music i was hearing. That time i went to 3 concerts a week, and i have to admit that i sometimes haven't felt well when the audience claped as one big mass and idolized those people on the stage. This experience must have had the director of this movie, who was born during the 2nd WW and who was 10 when the Nazi regime was finally defeated, but his position was even in the late 60s, when this film came out, that of an old man and absolutely not very progressive. Even the style of "mockumetary" wasnt something which haven't other people at that time have done already. What's the positive thing about using the style of an Mockumentary? You get closer to the people, it feels more real and not so much planed, but this film failed absolutely in that way. You never feel that this persons are real, they are super-flat and talking just those 2-3 sentences which are really needed to tell this even extraordinary flat story, which has just 4 or 5 waypoints they had to reach. If you have read 5-6 sentences about the plot you have already heard everything which you will see in this movie. There is nothing more! There is no elaborated futuristic world, no deeper insights in the fascist society of this "future", no fundamental critic on the media or society. Some have written here that the main-actor is somewhat flat and hasnt done his work that well, but i have to defend him. He is playing a naive and empty character, in shyness and confusion, and he is doing that quite well, but such a character is somewhat boring and this role doesn't give him more to dig out of it. His, but all other characters in the film as well, are nothing more than cardboard figures. The film has nothing to offer to analyse how a society can drift into a fascist system, nothing critical about society or media, it's just a determination that artists can be used in totalitarian systems. Even rockstars! But yes?! So what?! Thats nothing new that artists in such systems were used and that will happen also in the future, but thats not such a great idea anymore. You are right, when you say that this film was it's time ahead. For example in 2000s there were some quite hard and roaring heavy metal bands which had lyrics in the name of Jesus, which was quite absurd and some people made fun out of it, but it got that big that it was on the radar of music media. And yes, a lot of bands sold their music for comercials, even underground bands, which i thought would be much more integer to their ideas. And yes, there were bands, which were not more than entertainers and market products, but the strange thing is also, that rock music lost also it's importance for the youth of today, maybe exactly because of all that. Loosing its importance is quite obvious: MTV is gone, because noone wants to sea music clips anymore and the youth of today is idolizing YouTube-"Stars", while old people like me are going to festivals which have a line-up just if the 2000s were never gone. With all that, this film lost it's last justification to be still relevant for today. And the music? There are maybe 2 songs with the typical 60s-70s "La la La", which is far away from being that good that popular music of that time, sorry! It's good enough for the movie, to be believable that this singer has some fans, but really not that good that you want to hear it again after watching the movie. I am afraid you all have this film seen decades ago and have just good memories because of it, but time has changed and this film is just a somewhat bad film in TV quality. Go and watch "The Wave" (1981) instead, which is also cheap made, but this one has even today something to enrichen you, this one is super-out-dated and boring. Even a mainstream blockbuster like "Tribute of Panem" has more subversive criticism than this one, and thats really no compliment!

The Bandit (1996)

non-turkish review: just a local phenomenon!

[1 June 2021]

I've watched a Kusturica and thought why not go more east and watch this turkish movie, which used to be in many "imdb-top250"-lists and i had in line so many years now.

When I started to look for this film it had a rating of 8.6 and now it has 8.2, which is the same rating of Kusturica's "Time of the gypsies" and i am really sorry for all the turkish friends and their fandom, but this film really doesn't deserve such a high rating: The actors are okay, the main actor is even quite good and charming, others - like his love interest - were even somewhat bad. The plot is not that interesting, could have gone more deeply into the characters and some of the twists were also quite predictable, though i liked the ending, the last 20-25 minutes. Camera and Light was well done. It's a movie nobody outside of turkey must see, really not, so please, turkish collegues(!), dont vote for it with a 8 or even more, cause this one is NOT a masterpiece of world cinema and it should fall under the rating of 8.0. It's okay, some can even say it's very good (i really can understand that), but it doesn't deserve a rating more than 7.6. I gave it a 7, which means "good". And... dam'it, how hard was it - to get this film!!!

White God (2014)

Arthouse Kitsch

[6 July 2019]

I ve studied philosophy and I grew up and love dogs, but this film is neither intellectual nor deep in it's metaphorical message. This is ´Lady and the Tramp´ crossed with ´Planet of the Apes´ and a stupid mainstream revenge movie, flat and dull (even if you see it as a non-realistic, metaphorical film). Sorry, this one is a beguiler. It pretends to be clever and intellectual but it is just flat and stupid Kitsch.

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

looks great, but a slow start

[26 September 2017]

I am a huge Star Trek-Fan and with me all started with the Original Series (TOS). The Next Generation was great and I even liked Voyager. I just didn't like Enterprise at first, as many did, cause it didn't look like a Star Trek Series. Later i decided to watch it and i had to admit, i was wrong! Enterprise was a great series and it had some of the best Trek-episodes of all time. Now I know I will not do the same with this series and ignore it, just because it looks different. yes, it looks better then the TOS-Series from the sixties, even though it plays before that time, but come on... nobody wanted it that old school trashy. it is a very well done update and it looks just fantastic! and the first time it seems that Star Trek has a big budget. a dream comes true! The CGI is amazing, Klingons got their own world and well done architecture, though it looks to much like Gothic on earth and they look a little bit more than vampires, but, why not? I am quite sure they will have an explanation why they look different (i heard something about genetic experiences). they look mysterious and dangerous and just because we have seen just a group of Klingons, that doesn't mean that all of them are evil. Klingons and the federation were gone through evolutions, why don't show that? Maybe both have changed a lot after this or during this series. the 2 main actresses will be great in the future, though Michelle Yeoh hasn't found her own interpretation yet and had some smaller problems. The hologram was really not necessary, the critics are right with that, but i can live with it. Would have been better to communicate oldschool, but that doesn't ruin the whole show, though it really reminds of Star Wars. the other Star Wars hint was quite funny. To start the show in the desert, with humans in hoodies and then showing the Star Trek symbol has amused me. Settings are great and so on... so whats the problem right now? the plot! it started very slow and the cliffhanger could have been much better, especially when the series is going to Netflix and CBS-All Access. I am not that much interested to buy it, right now, but i am also not declining the series. it will be a big budget (yay!) Trek-series and i will watch it, for sure! but maybe just when its on free TV or on Netflix at a friend; and calm down haters, you will be able to see it. it just takes time. and Yes, its darker than the optimistic old series, but doesn't it fit into our time this way?! Star Trek has always been a mirror of the time it was made and that was always one of the reasons why it was interesting. We live in a dark and pessimistic world right now, so Star Trek has to show that. And it would be a surprise if the federation and the galaxy has always been in peace and just diplomatic. i like this decision, though it isn't said that it will stay that dark. that was just the pilot! i would have preferred a series in the timeline after TNG/DS9 and Voyager. but its okay for me. the only bad decision was that they show just 1 episode on free TV. They should have shown 2 or 3 episodes, so we would be more interested whats coming. 45mins were quite short and they haven't told that much in that time. I am happy that Star Trek is back, even though its darker now. Budget and quality is there. I hope it has a good story. the pilot wasn't able to answer that question. Don't rate a book by its cover! A pilot cannot give all the explanations some of you want and you cannot love every character from the beginning. Every show needs its time, Star Trek is no exception. so-called fans: don't kill it before it even started. give it a chance (a real one!)

Certified Copy (2010)

a failed copy

[22 September 2016]

First i have to claim that i am aware of some works of Kiarostami and that i also like some of his works (especially "Taste of Cherry", but also "Close Up" was very interesting), so its not a problem that i expected a mainstream movie and got something else, even though someone could have believed in getting a Hollywood love comedy after seeing this mainstream DVD cover. But yes, though Kiarostami really took some steps in this "easier to digest"-direction it is still a non- mainstream piece of author cinema, but... not a good one! "Certified Copy" feels like the next, fourth part of Richard Linklaters "Before..."-film series. Two people are walking and driving around and are "just talking". The problem with Kiarostamis work is that these persons are not very interesting and that the dialogues are far away of being that clever as those in Linklaters last work of his series in "Before Midnight" were. The whole story and the dialogues are based on the old controversy about original and copy in art history, cause the male protagonist is an book author, who has written about that. the problem is, that Kiarostami and (subsequently also) his characters don't have any idea what "fine arts" is. The book, his character has written, must be the most unnecessary book in art history, cause everything he is talking about are the most easy basics in philosophy and in art history, which western university students learn in their first semester, if not already during the high school years (in Europe). Every philosophy student will read or hear Plato's ideas about art very early and so are Duchamps ideas even more than common places since nearly 100 years (Duchamps fountain, dated 1917). Kiarostamis characters are not only unable to specify the correct sources, they are also not able to add a slightest minimum to these very old ideas. Though Linklaters earlier works "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly" were somewhat incorrect and also influenced by bad esoteric and new age, he had his own way to interpret things and add his own ideas, which were not all good, but at least somewhat interesting. Kiarostamis characters pretend to be professionals but are dumb freshmen with no clue at all and so the whole movie - which is based on these ideas - slides around, is pretending to be clever, but tells just another unfortunate love story of two adult people at the end. The intellectual background doesn't work at all and even the plot twist, relating to the question about the mysterious relationship, crepitates quite early without any good idea. At least the characters could have been likable, but even a great Juliette Binoche wasn't able to get more out of her annoying character, which she had to play. Richard Linklater will show how a wise RomCom with adults will work in his next part of the "Before"-series, Kiarostamis attempt was a big failure and just mediocre, if not even worse. 4-5 points out of 10.

Higher Principle (1960)

reaction

[19 March 2016]

i have to write this review just because of this one who was written by didiermustntdie.

i don't know the numbers of killed people in Czech and Slovakia during WW2, but an average number doesn't mean that the amount of the daily killed persons couldn't have been much higher at special times. F.ex when there was something extraordinary happening, like an assassination of a big SS or Gestapo-guy (Reinhard Heydrich). it's not just an accurate depiction what really happened, the reality was even more horrible. All males older than 15 of the village Lidice were killed afterwards. It was a massacre in which 172 innocent people died. (wikipedia)

i was also aware of that this film was made during the time the communists ruled in these countries, but i wasn't able to find anything which could be mentioned as "Propaganda". Thats absolutely nonsense! Its a film which could have been made in Western Germany too. You cant find anything pro-communist here.

its a good film with some extra-ordinary good actors, but its maybe not a classic for people outside of Czech and Slovakia. The relationships between all characters could have been shown deeper for example. but maybe its just another movie which grows in time and in memory.

7 or 8 out of 10 (from someone who doesn't live in Czech or Slovakia)

Sendung ohne Namen (2002–2013)

Best & most progressive show from Austria

[23 November 2015]

The "Show without a Name" is such a progressive TV-Show that it doesn't even fit in any existing genre. It's a fancy mixture of documentary, news, philosophy, weekly column, youth show, music show and so on. A narrator is talking about what he is thinking at the moment, what he experienced in private life, comments on political actualities or is talking about facts nobody knows. In the most episodes there are at least 1 music band or a famous person which got interviewed. The whole show is a huge stream of chains of associations, not just in the spoken words, but also visually. the pictures are sometimes underlining the words, but sometimes even build a 2nd chain of associations, though the words and the pictures never loose their contact completely. Beside spoken words and pictures there are often also written sentences shown, which are really often built a 3rd and separate information line. The flow of pictures and words is extraordinary fast, so there is a good chance that you don't get all the jokes and interesting thoughts with the first sight. if you are not fluently in German, don't even try to understand whats going on - you have unfortunately no chance to understand it (not just because of the language, but also because a lot of these people which are presented in the pictures are just well known in Austria and you will miss some jokes because of it). people from Germany could give it a try, cause the austrian narrator isn't speaking in dialect. target-audience: students, philosophy students, alternative youth culture, independent music audience, young adults, ...

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

non-British reviewer: maybe just for English audience

[1 October 2015]

i am austrian and grown up in the time this film was made. i was lucky to have lovely parents. Nevertheless i like dramatic, even tragic films and some of them were about working class families in UK. Some reviews have highly rated this film, said it is a masterpiece, so i had to see it, but i have to say that it didn't really touch me - maybe because i am not an insider of UK-culture. the domestic violence shown here was harsh, but at the end far from reality, cause in reality it is much more cruel and furious. Other movies are showing this much more real. In this film you get an insight like you were part of the society at that time. maybe you will see something, for a short time, when a door is open and you walk by, but mostly its hidden behind the doors. same here, but because of that it is not so touching. the film is very episodic and there is no real plot. this wouldn't be any problem if it would concentrate more on the persons, if f.ex. you get a more psychological insight, but the people are just surfaces. Maybe people used to be that way that time, hiding themselves behind a facade, but its not so good if you watch a movie and should be touched by the people. You don't get real intimate insights here. anyway, the actors have played well and the pictures were sometimes really great, as are the sceneries which really looked if they were shot at that time. The second half was shot with a more obvious nostalgia filter, which some people may hate, but i think which was a good choice. it felt like a film of that time and not of the 80s, it looked like original, sometimes even colorized pictures of the 50s. and… what is also not everyones thing… 50% of the film the actors are singing. maybe it was really that important at that time in UK, but for me, as a viewer of today, it was just annoying. sorry! to get to the point: the film was not touching, not tragic enough to be really touching - and for an independent film, which is not plot-driven, you don't get enough insight of the characters. So it was - for me - who is not a British guy, just a decent experience. its a good movie, because of the pictures, the atmosphere and the actors, but it was not an extraordinary good one. maybe you have to be from the British islands to really enjoy this film. its okay, but not a masterpiece for an "UK-outsider".

Glen or Glenda (1953)

an educational film interesting for Sex/Gender-Debatte

[26 November 2014]

Ed Wood is famous for being one of the worst directors and some think that can lead to amazing fun films, though thats right for some of his films, thats not so true for some others. "Jail Bait" shows him for example as an quite ambitious director (a movie which isn't so much fun, but still not really "good" in a common way) or films which are just different then others and in that case also not so funny. "Glen or Glenda" is one of this films of the last mentioned category.

"Glen or Glenda" is a very personal work of the director. the topic is "transvestism" / "cross- dressing" and the pressure the society puts on such persons. There are 2 frame-plots, 2 main-plots and 1 quite long dream-like sequence. All of this is packed in a playtime of around 1 hour. So you can understand you will not get a really elaborated story, cause there is no time for that.

this film is not so much a feature film, it is more an educational one. A "education film" which intention is to change the society's opinion, enlighten about this not so well known subject, all done in a pseudo-documentary style.

The off-voice is bringing forward some arguments, while the pictures are just underlining them. the actors are just visual representations/examples and like in all "educational films" they are playing quite bad, though not 'funny' bad. One important role has the doctor, who represents the professional, the specialist, which the people should believe.

The problem of the whole movie is, that Woods line of arguments is incoherent: first he is against a biologism, than he advances a view in which transvestism is something natural (biologism) and then it is just an illness (plot with the doctor). Ed Wood by himself doesn't know how to argue and how to win the tolerance of the viewer, so he tries it in different ways.

The first main-plot is presented still in this "educational" style and one man's transvestism is shown as an example. The pressure which is put on the protagonist is shown in a dream-like sequence, which reminds on silent-movie-era. In this part there is also shown some S&M (but VERY soft, without naked bodies and just symbolic), though it has nothing to do with the topic. This sequence leaves the "educational" style and invites the viewer to interpret the film in a more free way.

At the end of the film there are 15 mins left for the 2nd main-plot, in which he shows a second example of a "cross-dresser". the subjects in this part are "sex reversal" and "hermaphrodtism", a topic which is till nowadays not well known.

the movie is not good and it is also not bad, it is not funny either and it is not a "feature film". it is an educational one with pseudo-documentarian methods. It is an advocacy for more tolerance in our society. Though Woods opinion is not up-to-date anymore, though it is not well argued, this film is a quite interesting historical document about the debate. Who thinks this is a funny, entertaining or even a horror-film goes totally wrong and misunderstands this film.

The Man from Earth (2007)

worst movie i 've ever seen

[17 November 2012]

i couldn't believe that some here really think, thats a good movie. i thought this hype is just a joke! (it should be one). the story is like a bad x-factor-episode. this is the worst movie i ve ever seen (Regie, Acting, Story, Script!). nothing good to be found here. even though you can have make fun out of it during watching, better avoid this one! absolutely braindead! though... you shouldn't have the idea that it is as good as "braindead". it's not a trash movie of this kind! it's trash because its so bad.

"Your review does not contain enough lines - the minimum length for reviews is 10 lines of text" and again: i couldn't believe that some here really think, thats a good movie. i thought this hype is just a joke! (it should be one). the story is like a bad x-factor-episode. this is the worst movie i ve ever seen (Regie, Acting, Story, Script!). nothing good to be found here. even though you can have make fun out of it during watching, better avoid this one! absolutely braindead! though... you shouldn't have the idea that it is as good as "braindead". it's not a trash movie of this kind! it's trash because its so bad.