dieBaumfabrik Reviews

The Wave (2008)

Illogical, Patronising, Embarrassing.

[2/10 · 25 July 2010]

While "Die Welle" is obviously aimed at teenagers (I believe the book is a set text in Germany), it suffers greatly from appearing to have been written by teenagers.

As I watched the implausible changes in mood of a disparate bunch of middle-class kids towards a uniformed regiment, I remembered the bollockings my English teacher would give me about the fundamentals of narrative. Show the children's reactions by all means, but at least have the courtesy to show us how these reactions came to be. The movement had no obvious constitution or ideology, and there was not even the merest hint that anyone had explored their reasons for joining or sustaining the movement. If I had been reading the script, I would have been wondering where all the missing pages went.

Since the film-makers didn't bother explaining why "Die Welle" was fundamentally different from any other High School clique, the entire movie becomes a shiny, empty waste of time.

What really annoyed me most about "Die Welle" were the actions of Tim the loner at the end of the show. It was only a matter of time before he went tonto; the experiment had little to contribute to his violent actions.

I watched this on BBC Four, late on Sunday night; I was expecting at least a dark thriller or a well-crafted examination of la condition humaine, but instead was presented with a hundred minutes' worth of teenagers being teenagers.

If you haven't seen this movie, please don't bother; you can learn much more about the teenager's psyche by reading "Lord of the Flies" and "The Wasp Factory".

Flight 93 (2006 TV Movie)

Insulting Mawkfest

[3/10 · 6 September 2009]

I watched this on 'More4' on Friday 2009-09-04, thinking that it was the work of Paul Greengrass, the genius behind 'Bloody Sunday'. One hundred and ten tedious minutes later, I thought 'he's lost it'. I didn't realise that I was confusing 'Flight 93' with 'United 93' which I've just finished watching on 'ITV1' on Sunday 2009-09-06.

(Why did I include a spoiler alert? Well, I am assuming that in a few years' time, there will be visitors to this site who will not have heard about what happened in the USA on 2001-09-11 or, at the very least, will not remember what was special about United Airlines flight 93. For those future generations wanting an idea about what happened that day, stay away from this patronising slush.)

A hijacked airliner in itself makes for an interesting story, but the makers of this tat appear to have assumed that everyone watching was fully aware of the context and the ultimately fatal crashes of this plane and three others. Instead, it chose to focus on several conversations between the passengers in the air and their beautiful wives and parents at home in their beautiful houses. For an hour and a half, sweet syrupy goo oozed from the screen. 'Look!' say the film-makers, 'these nasty men killed beautiful loving American people.'

What idiot script-writer feels the need to point out that most people are nice, and have others around them whom they love and who love them back? This insults the viewer, and what's worse, insults the memory of real people who died in that crash.

Brüno (2009)

Scintillating Sexual Slapstick

[9/10 · 6 July 2009]

Well now, I haven't seen 'Borat' so I didn't have anything to compare it with, but I was pleasantly surprised by this little movie; judging by the almost continual laughter around me, I reckon at least 200 people agreed.

But it's not for everyone; for once, the BBFC have given a movie the right classification (18). If Louis Theroux gives you the creeps, if Roger's Profanisaurus goes over your head, if you think Captain Jack Harkness is a bit gay; then you should stay away from this flick. 'Brüno' is a continuous assault on attitudes to sexuality, religion and race, with particular focus on the citizenry of the USA. That group is obviously targeted as a result of the movie-making industry, so residents there shouldn't think that Cohen has it in for them alone; he quite happily spreads his antics around the world, with a couple of cringe-making episodes set in Israel and Lebanon.

It's filthy, but it's not juvenile; there are far too many sophisticated jokes which the average teenager couldn't understand unless he was a twink rentboy who read broadsheet newspapers when not servicing punters.

Of course, Cohen and David are canny enough to realise that a fair-sized portion of their audience may not get to see the movie until the DVD is passed around the playground later this year, so they very generously include plenty of material for the hard-of-thinking. Normally, I'd despise that type of film-making, but I had an extra frisson of delight while in the cinema when I could see the joke coming over the hill and could wait for those around me to catch up - I felt like some sort of sleazy god surrounded by a host of sycophantic angels.

SPOILER: I didn't just include the above to show teacher that I'm ever so smart; the film-makers are also aware of the varying speeds of the audience members and edited together the most carefully timed climax towards the end of the movie. A fight in the wrestling ring went on just long enough for everyone on this side of the screen to realise that Brüno and Lutz were going to reconsummate their relationship in front of a large crowd of dyed-in-the-wool straight men. One by one we waited as we converged on one thought; we were all simultaneously salivating as the scene jumped to a middle-American who mouthed, in slow-motion, 'oh shyeeeit': cue 200 synchronised bursts of laughter!

SPOILER: I sincerely hope that the various classifications around the world reflect different attitudes to sex rather than different policies on censorship; I would hate to see the bulk of the world missing out on one of the funniest scenes in all of cinematica; the singing bell-end.

My only complaint? I was nearly exhausted after an hour; I wouldn't say that I struggled through the last twenty minutes, but I'd have welcomed the editing out of the hunters and Paula Abdul to leave more energy for the better bits.

Michael Collins (1996)

Woefully Mis-cast

[5/10 · 21 January 2009]

Dear God, who decided that Neeson would play Collins? For those (seemingly select few) of us who have seen 'The Treaty' (qv), we strutted and fretted while Uncle Liam locked horns with, of all people, Rickman.

I have to say this, and it genuinely hurts to do so in the reflection of anyone prepared to depict the struggle for Irish independence: Neeson should have played Devalera, Rickman should have played Griffith, and Gleeson should have played Collins. I say it hurts, because I feel deeply uncomfortable dismissing Jordan's attempts to educate the rest of the world about the War of Independence. All the above aside, it was a good story; pity the characters were so badly mis-cast.

The Treaty (1991 TV Movie)

Gleeson was born for this role

[9/10 · 21 January 2009]

**seriously, if you don't know how the Irish War of Independence went, you shouldn't be allowed internet access.** 'The Treaty' may seem dull in comparison to Ridley Scott's badly-cast money-maker 'Michael Collins', but this movie had two well-cast stars in the meat of the affair: Gleeson and Bannen. I could rest there, but the other English and Irish characters were also well-played. Oh, such a great ensemble piece without the redundant explosions!

Unlike other shows about the War of Independence, in which only about 2000 people died, this movie let us know how justified the War was, by giving us a potted insight into the Irish and British minds. Whereas the idea of stopping the War was portrayed as a disgrace for a bunch of well-fed and well-bred British politicians, the consequence of which would be a few lost votes in Parliament, the idea of losing the War for the Irish was met with such hostility that the clever Irish leaders were looked upon as traitors - an idea that led directly to the more costly Civil War...

The Civil War should not have been (Collins was killed, in case you didn't know), but to watch the boys 'at the top' argue who should live, and for what reason, made watching this show a thrill.

Offside (2006)

Better than "Those Glory Glory Days"

[9/10 · 20 December 2008]

Ah, the best and funniest movie about female football fans, only slightly better than the 1982 saga of teenage delusion set in North London (qv). By the way, I just watched this on Film 4 [2008-12-21] and am ruing my inability to set the PVR).

This is easily my second favourite football movie after "Mike Bassett: England Manager", but this time with the added twist of looking like a guerrilla piece of movie-making from a team who apparently keep making movies which are banned in the country in which they are made (just think about the bit where the girls are taken from the stadium just as the Sun is setting: fast reactions all round).

It is rare for a movie to make me laugh out loud, but when the rural soldier escorted one of the girls into the lavvies while forcing her to wear an inpromptu mask made from a poster of Ali Daei, I couldn't stop waking the others in the house with my snorts, especially when the young soldier misunderstood the grandfather's calls for assistance...

Speaking of the toilets, I just wish I could speak Farsi so that I could work out the writing on the toilet walls (yes, there were a few scribblings in Roman script, but they mostly referred to wanky American rock bands).

Also, on the rural-and-Farsi theme, don't you reckon that Omid Djalili sounds like a yokel when he talks Farsi? Listen to the custody sergeant in this movie and then go "Yup."

I'm not going to bore on about the sexual politics of Iran, and I'm not going to bore on about the dubious acting; my love for this movie comes from the script and the editing: top notch stuff.

Here's a list of my top favourite football movies: 1. Mike Bassett, England Manager 2. Offside 3. Those Glory Glory Days 4. A Shot at Glory 5. The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

Middletown (2006)

Middletown: less than average

[1/10 · 6 January 2008]

Once again, the posters lied to me.

The marketing of this flick was deeply at odds with the content; 'explosive'? When I read the synopsis for this movie, I was expecting to see a townful of grotesques, every man-jack of them bloodshot and bloated by alcohol, peppered by heroin needles and bent double with chronic masturbation; into such a "den of vice" would come the clean-shaven hero, shining Gabriel. Instead, the movie was the complete opposite of what I was led to expect.

The first few minutes of the film showed us that Middletown is a simple little place full of poor people doing the best they can, whether fiddling a little to make ends meet, drinking to forget the pain, or watching cock-fighting (chickens, not penises) to while away the boredom. In other words, the townspeople were desperately ordinary.

The only (deliberate?) grotesque in the piece was Gabriel, the brainwashed Presbyterian preacher played by Macfadyen, whose face is built in such a way as to suggest a permanent air of bewildered fury. If I were kind, I would suggest that the Paisleyite rantings of the preacher were a witty comment designed to make us despise Gabriel and his faith. Unfortunately, Brian Kirk is so inept a film-maker that you quickly despise everyone in the movie, leaving the audience to fret their way through eighty-plus minutes of dark, hackneyed tedium. My only respite from this waste of celluloid was a game of "guess the accent" broken up with rounds of "spot the location." Are we surprised that Gaybo ends up stealing his brother's child and suffocating his father? Of course not; he's a bible-bashing preacher and therefore psychotic. All the townspeople stand around looking shocked at the end of the movie, but I suspect that they've just realised what a turkey they've put their names to.

The Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission have a budget to spend, but there are better projects than this feeble enterprise. The only kind thing I can say in favour of this movie is that it has managed to replace "Superman Returns" as the worst film of 2006; one hell of an achievement.

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Sunshine (2007)

Full of Sound and Fury

[4/10 · 25 December 2007]

***This comment DOES contain spoilers; my word, yes*** Ah, the burdens of family at Christmas! I gave my little bruv a copy of 'Blazing Saddles' (qv), and he returned the favour with a copy of 'Sunshine', backed up with the most heartfelt plea I have ever witnessed from him: 'give it a chance and see what you think.' Of course, that kind of heart-tugging will always make me narrow my eyes in suspicion but, eight hours later, my lids have finally shut from despair, not intense insolation.

I won't carp on about the physics of the movie; I have long accepted the pervasive nature of narrativium (qv) in story-telling, so I won't bother to compare the rules of my universe with those of Alex Garland's. Nor should I fault the professionalism of the cast and crew; I was particularly taken with Benedict Wong's portrayal of despair following Trey's erroneous course correction. Obviously then, what is left to complain about is the plot: why in the name of Nebuchadnezzar's nob-end did Garland and Boyle introduce Captain Pinbacker?

Some space-based movies excel at the ambiguous mentality of the characters; think, for example of Hal 9000's dilemma in '2001: A Space Odyssey' or Chris Kelvin's entire approach in 'Solaris'. The premise of 'Sunshine' and the characters' reaction to it, were already well established in the first fifteen minutes, in which a fading Sun is also deadly up close, and crew members are both logical scientists and stir-crazy kids.

There was also so much believable menace in the threat of oxygen depletion; the exchange with Mace and Cassie during the debate about whether to euthanise Trey to maintain oxygen levels was very promising; there was enough ambiguity in the characters for that alone to be a thrill. When Corazon furtively introduced the subject of oxygen and crew numbers, I was reasonably excited about the prospect of the helionauts turning on each other in a desperate fight to survive (for the good of the mission, naturally...).

Again, Harvey's weaselly arrogance, Mace's logic and Dr Searle's nobility during the escape from the 'Icarus 1' was an excellent starting point for tension; no more ingredients were needed to turn that scene into a frightening examination of human nature.

So why the need to incarnate threat with the 'daemon ex machina' of the bead-jiggling Pinbacker, a hopeless zombie of a McGuffin? I can only presume that it was a result of the 'Peoria' lobby at Fox, although I am deeply disappointed that Garland and Boyle listened to their pleas.

I praised the professionalism of the cast and crew earlier, but I have to condemn everybody for the final ten minutes, as Capa drives the bomb into the Sun. The ending had the same devotion to nasty eye-wrenching post-production tricks that made me walk out of '28 Weeks Later' half an hour after the lights went down. In the case of 'Sunshine' an already moribund story was quickly despatched by a hastily-edited SFX-heavy climax. It was not needed; Capa and Cassie should have been allowed to meet the surface of the Sun in long slow takes, allowing us time to get inside their heads as they sacrificed themselves.

I have a habit of walking out of movies; these days, I count a movie as good if I stay to watch the end: if it wasn't for the fact that I was watching 'Sunshine' on a free DVD in the comfort of my own armchair, I would have raced to the box office for a refund. Why? Life's too short; there are many more stories to follow just by meeting people on the street. That's what 'Sunshine' should have concentrated on all the way through to the end: people. I have to be honest: I hate movies; I love stories.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

The Rotten Fruits of Independence

[1/10 · 6 July 2007]

A 4th July movie; I performed the obligatory preparations (especially leaving my brain at home) and sat down to watch two hours of pure eye-candy. What I saw instead, before I walked out forty minutes later, was a gross insult to my optical nerves, my gluteus maximus, and my wallet. I didn't watch the last half of the movie; it might have been the best use of celluloid since 'Independence Day', but after twitching through half-an-hour of badly-stitched clichés of much better movies, my tolerance alarm was blaring too loud for me to care. The sight of Venus setting over the hills as I left the cinema was the cheapest and most rewarding experience of the evening.

When I invest €8 in dodging the rain, I expect instant dividends, not a random sequence of eavesdroppings from fellow customers mumbling 'jealous dad from Armageddon', 'escort like 16 Blocks' and 'control room from WarGames', yet the moving air from each end of the audience's alimentary canals was the highlight of the performance.

Quite simply, I didn't care; without the necessary diet of action, my brain regained control and I became increasingly frustrated at the insulting script, offensive acting, embarrassing nods to Globalism and oh-so-fashionable abuse of colour and contrast. I won't be the first to say this, and I certainly won't be the last: if 'Die Hard 4.0' is the best that the USA has to offer, I wish the British had won the War of Independence.

Red Dawn (1984)

Relies too much on viewers' goodwill

[1/10 · 23 January 2006]

Time and distance have not been too kind to this movie, but then I suspect that the budget wasn't either. Too much was spent on the helicopter prosthetics, and not enough on writing, casting and cinematography.

'Red Dawn' attempts to tell a common story: what would you do to protect your way of life, and how would those acts of protection change you? It is a movie about resistance to and insurgency against an invader; there is such brutality on both sides that one wonders whether the end justifies the means. It could be construed as an anti-war movie, but I was left with the impression that it was a blatant appeal to the audience: 'The Commies are coming! The Commies are coming!'

Like all movies with a political overtone, 'Red Dawn' is very much a zeitgeist, intended to satisfy an ephemeral hunger. Some movies of this ilk are so well-made that they eventually become classics, but this tale of US insurgency against a Soviet invasion cannot be described thus. It is disappointing that a promising idea has been so badly handled; in fact, I wonder whether the project was rushed just to catch the wave of President Reagan's defence policy. It is interesting to note that, had they waited a year, the producers would have been faced with the difficult task of selling a movie in the 'Pink Dawn' of Glasnost.

With the concept of zeitgeist (or perhaps 'cash-in') in mind, one may be tempted to forgive all those involved for just going through the numbers and hoping to rely on patriotic support. Many more successful film-makers, however, have realised that it's not enough to preach to the converted. John Milius and Kevin Reynolds should have studied the past and looked at British movies of the 1940s for examples of how to tell a story to people who don't want to listen.

It may appear cruel to cite the works of two of the 20th century's best writers, but good writers are needed to tell this kind of story. 'In Which We Serve' (1942, w. Noel Coward) and 'Went the Day Well?' (1942, w. Graham Greene) were two low-budget movies that concentrated on the way of life that their heroes were fighting for. In the case of Coward's work, stranded sailors reflected on this life in a series of flashbacks, whereas with Greene, initially jolly English villagers were faced with a small-scale Nazi paratroop raid. These movies, and many like them, took care to generate empathy in the audience, and reminded them of the need to struggle.

Such a simple trick was carelessly overlooked in 'Red Dawn.' In fact, one barely meets the characters before the war reaches them, and they spend little time afterwards considering or debating the changes they undergo. One feels that the writers are incapable of designing introspection. Most attempts to depict the American way of life are clumsy visual or audio clichés: the Flag, 'America the Beautiful' and Guns, lots of Guns. These references are handled in such a way as to make me wonder about the writers' ability to form personal relationships. An opportunity to render the rebel teenagers as 'Everymen' has been wasted; instead, they come across as ciphers.

With no rounded characters, no time for thoughtful scenes, and with a set-up dismissed almost before the curtains sweep back, how does Milius fill his hour and three-quarters? With death, destruction and tears. The bulk of the movie consists of an unknown cast of Brat-Packers wandering around the Rockies blasting nearly everything with a red star. Very soon, any supportive thoughts the audience brought with them evaporate as they realise they are watching a movie not about resistance but revenge.

Far too much time (and money) is spent on guns, tanks and helicopters. A tedious 'last-stand' scene is stretched out by dull photography focussing on a bunch of Bell choppers poorly dressed up as Soviet gunships. Many scenes of the rebels' deaths are ruined either by such cinematic clumsiness or by dreadful lines delivered by incompetent actors. Each time, I found myself not caring; making a viewer feel that way is the biggest crime in cinema.

There is one positive item in the show: the only decent actor in the show is Harry Dean Stanton; since he is the reincarnation of Huckleberry Hound, it's hard not to like him.