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2 Guns (2013)
The male equivalent to 'The Heat'...
...Only worse and lazier in every way imaginable. I actually thought Mark Wahlberg has become a descent actor, but after this performance I'm not so sure anymore. His character was more annoying than McCarthy's in 'The Heat', which is actually an accomplishment. Just not a very good one.
And Denzel Washington? Well, he does what he does these days, making one mediocre garbage film after the next collecting his 10 to 15 million dollar pay check. With '2 Guns' he just added another one to that list.
This film is just another one of these movies that you've seen at least a million times before. Only better. And probably cheaper. This is easily one of the year's worst films and it's not very likely we see another film this year that could be worse.
American Horror Story: Bitchcraft (2013)
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon did it again
Story and plot wise this episode was just okay, but where it really excelled was Gomez-Rejon's direction. It was once again simply superb. He is a combination of Scorsese and DePalma on steroids. The way he uses the camera to capture images is beautiful, disturbing and weird, making even simple dialog scenes become special.
I said it before (in my review to the Anne Frank: Part II episode of the 2nd season), but I will say it again. He is a future Oscar director contender. This episode was just another proof. I can't wait to see next episode he directed. That alone will be worth tuning in. I know I will.
World War Z (2013)
The best summer blockbuster movie so far (Date: July 8th)
The summer blockbuster season is not over yet, but this is by far the best one to date. Genre purist will screw up their noses, saying 'this is not a real Zombie movie, it's PG-13 for Christ's sake! And where the hell are the blood and gore'?
Well, sometimes it's about seeing the bigger picture. According to box office.com this film has a total budget of $260 million dollars, which means the film has to make $520 million to break even. So good luck trying to get back this much money with an R-Rating. It simply won't happen. So making this film a PG-13 picture is more than understandable. And you know what? The PG-13 rating doesn't hurt the film at all!
Because even if you had all the blood and gore you would still need something much more important. Suspense and creepy moments that will make you hold your breath. And this film got plenty. It doesn't even take 10 minutes and all hell breaks loose and the Zombie apocalypse begins. And talking about creepy moments, the one in the staircase of the apartment building will make your skin crawl.
Those creepy moments get mixed up with a lot of action in the middle part (the scenes in Jerusalem and on the plane), followed by another calmer, yet very suspenseful finish in a laboratory.
This film is very entertaining and suspenseful from start to finish. Highly recommendable.
Man of Steel (2013)
Starts very well, but then the special effects take over
The first half is simply sensational, but when the special effects take over in the second half and Superman starts fighting the bad guys, the film becomes kind of boring, because those fight scenes drag on for a very long time. They are also repetitive and look kind of silly like in 'The Matrix Revolutions' when Neo and Agent Smith start their little fight in the air. But let's get back to the first half again.
I think using a non-linear narrative to retell the story of Superman's beginnings was a very good choice. It just "flows" very well, inter cutting the present with flashbacks from his past (Definitely an influence from Christopher Nolan).
The actors do all a very good job, especially Henry Cavill and also Kevin Costner. Unfortunately we don't get to see a lot of the latter, but then again we have Hans Zimmer's magnificent score to listen to. This must be one of his finest works in his career and one that we'll remember in the years to come.
A 6 out of 10 might seem like a low score and I would have given it a higher one, but the second half was simply not good enough. Still, this is a good and entertaining action summer blockbuster film worth watching.
The Heat (2013)
WOW...this film is bad. Really, really bad.
I've never come so close of walking out of a movie theater in my life. The film was really that bad. And the script was even worse. This must have been written by someone with just one brain cell or two, at the most. It wasn't funny or entertaining at any point. So how can a studio spend even one dollar on a crappy script like this, a script that shouldn't have seen the light of day in the first place? It' a complete mystery to me.
The actresses unfortunately aren't much better either I'm afraid. Since they have no chemistry at all, both are doing their own thing. McCarthy is cursing and foul-mouthing 24/7, probably to make her look hip, cool & tough. Well the contrary was the case. She was just annoying from start to finish.
And Sandra Bullock? What the hell is she doing in this picture? How could she have sold herself out to this garbage? I can't remember another film where she was this bad (I haven't seen 'All about Steve'). There are only two films this year so far that were worse. 'Movie 43' and 'Scary Movie 5'. And now there is 'The Heat'... Yes it's really that bad.
House at the End of the Street (2012)
HUGE letdown... Again!
You probably watched the trailer to this, just like I did, going 'Hey, this looks actually pretty neat. Maybe this film could be good', just to realize, after having watched the entire film, that this was just another huge letdown.
Because this is just another one of these scary wanna be films where the main characters have just moved from the big city to the middle of nowhere for whatever unimportant reason, so that the story can begin. And this results in one of the most boring first 70 minutes such a film can ever have, because NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING of any significance happens in that time.
Well, at least we have eye candy Jennifer Lawrence to look at. And she is good, or let me say it this way. She is as good as she can be with the little the script has to offer.
And in that way she reminds me a bit of my favorite actress Natalie Portman. Even if the film is a complete stinker, she is still amazing.
The last part of the film is then quite good, at least compared to the first 70 minutes. And the scene in which Jennifer's character is in the dark, trying to locate the bad guy with a flashlight is then actually pretty cool, but that's about one minute of film out of 96.
So, the bottom line is, this film has absolutely no balance at all. 70 minutes of boredom and about 15 minutes of a little suspense and action is just not enough to have a good movie.
So, this is just another huge letdown... Again. Pity.
American Horror Story: I Am Anne Frank: Part 2 (2012)
The BEST episode of 'em all
Being able of directing an episode like this must be every director's wet dream. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon your are a true master. This episode is just perfect... But let's start from the beginning.
Sister Jude meets with a Jewish Nazi hunter (played by Mark Margolis; I'm sure 'Breaking Bad' fans will remember him). The truly remarkable about this scene is the way Gomez-Rejon captures it. It's all done in one shot with constant camera movement and just beautifully captured mirror shots. That scene alone should earn him nominations for best director at the Emmys and the Director's Guild Award Ceremony.
If it's not that scene, it's definitely the scene between Grace and Kit in lock up. I mean how he is able to create such an intimacy between the two of them, although they are actually in two separate rooms... It's just so beautiful and sad at the same time. WOW!
Then there's a series of seemingly insignificant shots of a tape recorder, but if you take a closer look of how this object is introduced and visually presented, there's just so much more to it. It's the nail in Kit's coffin, because as we'll find out later, the tape recorder is not used to save Kit from the electric chair, but to bring him closer to it than he wants.
The Nazi Hunter story line is then picked up again when Frana Potente's character (who is not Anne Frank after all and therefore Dr. Arden is probably no Nazi after all) is brought back to the asylum by her husband. The camera spins around and moves up the stairs to do a push in on Dr. Arden's face, which is followed by a shot of his shadow on the wall of her prison cell when he stands in the doorway. It's such a cool and creepy shot, like from a good, old German silent film from the late 20's or early 30's. WOW again!
Although Franka Potente's character was not Anne Frank, Dr. Arden (brillantly played by James Cromwell) WAS indeed a Nazi SS doctor at a concentration camp after all which is shown with the very last shot of this episode, a beautiful and slow push in on a picture that shows him in his SS uniform surrounded by Nazis.
But before the episode ends with this revelation there's another even more shockingly one. And again it starts with another seemingly insignificant shot. The shot of a lamp which turns out to be a very strong hint to something very dark and very sick, because there's a new kind of leather-face in town boys and girls, a truly demonic one to be exact in the figure of Zachary Quinto's character who is now showing his true colors.
Has he been hiding in plain sight so far with his face for everyone to see (which is his real mask), his true evil is about to be fully revealed which I am really looking forward to. I hope he shows us the monster in some sick and violent way (maybe dismembering the body of Lana's girlfriend right in front of her).
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon you are a future Oscar director contender. A perfect 10 out of 10. Chapeau!
Hindenburg: The Last Flight (2011)
Big Crap. So no surprise here.
The story: an abstruse, hair dragged conspiracy theory with more holes in it than Swiss cheese. The acting: poor and wooden as matchsticks. The directing: boring, awfully bad and totally uninspired (in every dialog scene throughout the film the director uses the same over shoulder shots). But the most annoying part of the film: the male protagonist's haircut! I could go on with that list, but it would be endless, because this film has nothing good to offer. NOTHING!
So why does RTL always manage to come up with nothing than total rubbish when they spent a fortune making a TV movie? The answer: They don't know what GOOD really is!
Die Snobs - Sie können auch ohne dich (2010)
Bad, worse, Christian Ulmen
Once again Christian Ulmen proves impressively that he is an even more talentless actor than Sofia Coppola. He is and always will be Germany's worst amateur actor.
On the ZDF homepage the show's content is described as the following: The passionate golf players Astor and von Zesen pretty much call the golf course their home. True to their motto "rather lose a good friend than give away a good punch line" they move over the fairways and greens from hole to hole where amusing obstacles are waiting.
So the show is pretty much about two assholes playing golf. Good. I like asshole characters. Don't we all? Characters like Barney Stinson in How I met your mother, Charlie Harper in Two and a half men, Ari Gold in Entourage, Gene Hunt in Life on Mars or Eric Cartman in South Park.
We like these characters, because deep inside them they have a good heart and they make us laugh, but more importantly these characters are played by ACTORS who know their craft well, actors who are able to inhabit a character and make him come to life.
The characters on this show are boring and completely irrelevant. You just don't care about them, because of the poorly written scripts and the overall horrible bad acting of all actors, but especially Christan Ulmen's.
When it comes to acting he is and always will be completely talentless. The quality of his "acting" is the same as the afternoon trash that's broadcasted on RTL. Just horrible.
So what's the conclusion? Will Christian Ulmen learn how to act one day just like a blind hen that'll find his grain of corn? I think it's more likely that Easter and Christmas will be on the same day someday.