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andrei-galgau
Reviews
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad Max... or the Femen go to Burning Man?
OK, visually this is stunning but that's about it... there is 0 story, basically you see a truck being chased by cars for TWO HOURS!! OK, the cars are great and the special effects are awesome but, you'd expect that with the the 4th installment of the series we'd at least get a clue on to what exactly happened to the Planet to be in such a state and who is Mad Max and what is he doing there in the first place. This is basically a 2 hours-long music video (complete with guitar player!) on angry Femen going to Burning Man. Oh, and don't expect anything even mildly realistic: vehicles that conveniently glide through the desert sand without getting stuck even once, fully-loaded 18 wheelers that outrun small cars, people that never eat nor sleep, they just drive 24/7...
127 Hours (2010)
very nice and involving
Although the initial idea of the movie attracted me, I also thought "hmm, so basically we'll see some dude stuck in a ditch for an hour and a half", which sounded a bit boring. Well, that's when you recognize great directors because Danny Boyle manages to keep the tension up all throughout the movie which never comes out as being dull. It is also one of those rare movies that make you feel so closely related to the main carachter that you feel like doing something to change your life at the end of the movie. Personally it made me look past some grudges with some close-ones and put things into perspective, and there are certainly not many movies out there that make you want to do that! Definitely one to watch.
Project X (2012)
wants to be the mother of all teen movies... but fails
Basically the director took a typical teen movie (mom and dead leave upper-class teenage student home alone for a few days, he decides to throw a party which doesn't really go on as planned) and shoots it full of steroids. Whereas we all have in the corners of our minds a young Tom Cruise or Matthew Broderick doing some bad things but ultimately managing to get everything sorted out before mom and dad come back home, this one takes things so far that it's impossible to fix things. Which makes it very hard to believe. I'm certain a young generation will love it, and it is good fun to watch just before that night out with the friends, still, for us older guys there is a big "has been done before... many times..." feeling when watching it.
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)
Takes gore to a new level
Whereas the first one was a good "typical" horror movie, this one really takes gore to a new level! Very often, horror movies are presented as incredibly shocking yet they always come short of really shocking the audience (except for 12 year-old girl scouts that is). The problem being that, even though the audience expects something "sick", people rarely want to go the full way and see something really disgusting like a mother squashing her newborn child or a girl being anally raped by a fat midget. Yet you get all of this here. So for once, a movie presented to be the most shocking ever actually is, well OK, I'd also have to mention Salo's 120 Days Of Sodom in here since it's the only movie that comes close to this level of gruesomeness. But for fans of "gore" praising Cannibal Holocaust or Ichi the Killer and such, that is nothing compared to this.
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
pretty darn good actually!
Well, first of all, and I intend this as a reply to most negative reviews, you must judge this movie for what it is: a horror movie. OF COURSE it's not medically accurate, OF COURSE it portrays a bunch of young actors with bad acting skills getting tortured, OF COURSE the plot is thin and revolves around a fairly simple yet very shocking idea. What the hell did you guys expect from a horror movie? Now, as far as horror movies are concerned, this is pretty darn good actually, and belongs up there with some classics like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hellraiser. So yes, if you intend to see a feature length movie of Dr House you've come to the wrong address, if mindless and gruesome violence is what you want, then come join the party!
Dazed and Confused (1993)
one of the most overrated movies ever!
I got this on DVD after reading many great reviews. I watched the first 15 minutes... nothing... OK, maybe it's a slow starter... then the next 15 minutes... still nothing, then the next 15 and so on until it was over. The 70s America seemed to be the best place that a teen could grow up in with the great sexual liberties and widespread drug usage and all. However this movie portrays teenagers of the period as incerdibly dull, the most "outrageous" thing they did throughout the movie was smash some mailboxes with a trashcan and smoke some pot. And that's it!! Although a huge part of the American culture at the time, LSD is only mentioned but no one even came close to doing it in the movie, and psychedelia in general is missing (a part from some clothes here and there). I can only hope that everyday teens from the period had more fun that this...
The Tree of Life (2011)
Great idea... lousy directing...
I decided to watch this movie after hearing a lot of positive reviews, but without knowing who actually directed it. Then, about 15 minutes into the movie I've recognized all the Terrence Malick "trademarks": incredibly slow pace, lack of a coherent storyline, HUGE gaps where absolutely nothing happens and you just see random "artistic" images with someone whispering some "meaningful" phrase in the background. I was thinking "oooh no, not this again!" since I really find his directing to be THE most boring and pretentious ever. I forced myself to watch it till the end and I must admit that the whole idea of putting a human's death in the perspective of the creation of the Universe is quite thought-provoking but I just can't stand Terrence Malick's directing.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
I'm glad I didn't pay to see this...
The only positive thing I could say about this movie is that I watched it for free on TV and didn't actually have to pay for it. Otherwise this is incredibly boring and pointless. It lasts less than an hour and a half but it feels like a 3 hour movie, that's how boring it is! You basically get the usual Hollywood love triangle plot with a few twists, which would've been thought-provoking if not outright shocking... 20 years ago. The problem is that we've gotten so used to these kind of twists in the past 20 years (Desperate Housewives, Sex in the City, Jerry Springer,... need I say more?) that they hardly come as a surprise to anyone anymore. So yeah I guess it can still be considered as thought-provoking for some conservative Mid-Western type who still don't have a TV in their houses and see a movie once every decade, otherwise this comes off as deja-vu a million times. Which is terribly disappointing when coming from Woody Allen who has made a reputation precisely out of creating unique situations and original story lines.
Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey (2008)
Disappointing...
Most documentaries on drugs fall short simply because you cannot accurately describe the feeling of intoxication on film. But this one doesn't even try... Instead, it documents Richard Evans Schulte's journeys on the American continent, simply mentioning a long list of hallucinogens that he discovered during his researches. The reporter just visits places where Schultes has been and concludes that they're much more different today compared to a few decades ago (well duh...). Footage from actual shamanistic ceremonies is extremely limited and you never really get the feeling of understanding what's going on, not to mention that the reporter himself never actually tries the substances that he mentions (or if he did, he obviously did it off camera).
The cultured scholar might also remark from the beginning that one of the drugs mentioned in the title of this movie was made in a lab in Switzerland and has nothing to do with Schulte's journeys... Which is to say that the documentary simply forces a part on LSD which doesn't really fit in with the rest of the narration, probably to draw in more viewers since LSD is THE hallucinogenic drug that everyone knows. Now, if this documentary was called "The journeys of Richard Evans Schultes", it might have made a lot more sense, but the way it's presented here, you can't help but feel a little scammed...
Brüno (2009)
funnier than I expected...
Ah well, yesterday my gf wanted to go to the movies and since this was basically the only movie playing there that didn't seem like pure crap I decided to give it a go. Knowing Sacha Baron Cohen's older movies I wasn't expecting much, but in the end I actually laughed a lot more than I was expecting to. The concept of the movie is simple: take an actor, make him act as gay as possible in the most gay-unfriendly places that you can imagine (in the middle of orthodox jews or going on a hunting trip with some redneck Americans, etc.). There are some situations where you wonder how Sacha Baron Cohen and his filming crew made it out alive, then you realize that this movie is only made to look like they're filming real life situations but in reality it's all scripted material... There are some scenes which are a bit over the top (for example the dancing penis scene... although I'm glad that this is basically the first wide-audience movie to actually play gabber in their soundtrack ;)) but all in all I'm pretty happy I've seen it. It definitely deserves an A for twisted and original humour. There are also some pretty subtile jokes in there ("OK so that's Darfour, now where's Dar-five?"). What I found even funnier than the joke itself was that like half the audience didn't get the joke lol. My only regret is that this movie focuses like 95% on gay people and only 5% on fashion, seeing the movie description and all I was expecting more of a 50-50 focus.