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Reviews
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Star Wars fans avoid the new series!
The new series of movies are as if the they are not made by the same person. Actually, in a way, they aren't. They where made by an aging fart who decided to make a kids movie. If you believe that a grate kids movie will be grate for adults then I'll tell you that this isn't one of those. The movie (whole quasi-star wars prequel trilogy) lacks the mysticism of the original series. Thats the main problem. In the original trilogy you had knights, wizards, spiritual power and a princess. In the new series you only have a princess and wannabe knights and wizards with some kind of organism living in them which gives them the force (what????). Where is that Lucas from the 70's gone? The one that wrote about people with unexplainable powers, a force flowing through them that is in all living things. A concept heavily borrowed from the eastern philosophies which gave the films spiritual and mystical note. If you liked the original trilogy for those reasons then avoid the new films at all costs. They are childish crap.
The Best Man (2005)
Beware complete crap
I guess this is one of those joint productions where the American side insisted on some of their leads. So it came that you have American actors with really crappy British accents. Extemly annoying. I watched the movie for about 15 minutes. Funny thing is that some moron in the video store swore that the movie is incredible, that he watched it twice. He said: "It's an English movie, a comedy, you know how great they usually are". He's right, they usually are great but not this one. I'm going to the videostore right now to return it, I'm so excited about his film I'll beat the crap out of that guy if he's there. I just have to share my excitement with him.
The Untouchables (1987)
Goody-two-shoes
It's very simple - if you like goody-two-shoes films and you're not into anything remotely complex you'll find this one excellent. It's all black and white here with no Grey areas. I would say its very 'simple' not wanting to use dumb. It has an uncompromisable good guy called Elliot Ness (played by very irritating all American good guy Kevin Costner) chasing a bad guy called Al Capone. There's no real life characters, ones of discussable moral qualities, there's so much fictitious moral in the good characters that you'll wish the ending was different and they where all put up against a wall and Al Capone or Frank Nitti shot the s**t out of them, especially Ness. Mind you, generally I'm not the type to boo at the good guy but this movie is so fake you just can't help but feel really really disappointed at the end when you see that Ness doesn't get his brain blown. To sum up - you know De Palma, you know Costner and thats what you have to expect. Forget about De Niro and Conory, I say its a shame they showed their faces in this crap.
Monsoon Wife (2004)
What crap
You know why this film is the only one shot entirely in Cambodia? Because they didn't have money for anything else. Seriously, this movie looks like two guys took their video camera on holiday and decided that between drinking, eating and sleeping they make a movie. To be really honest, I was talking to friends while the movie was on so we would occasionally take a look, basically to comment on the pathetic state of the movie. Acctualy the Cambodian girls where not that bad but the American actors... Like I said, I'm almost sure it was to guys on holiday figuring "hey we got this camera, lets make a movie!" Its one of those movies that really stupefies me - how and who pays for that crap. And why?? I tell you there are some dumb producers out there.
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980)
A brilliant lesson in how to manage a band.
If you ever wondered how boy bands (yes, even though the Sex Pistols are antipodes to the cosmetic-fairy image of boy bands the principle is the same) are created then this is a must see.
The film has a feel of being made fast and cheap but hey its the Sex Pistols so what do you expect?? A misplaced, angry bunch of hoodlums put together to form the most extreme opposite of what the music industry was (and still is) serving as artificially produced boy bands. That's what Malcom Maclaren talks about in the film, how he took 4 guys with no future and made them (for a brief but very explosive period) the center of the music world. Like I said before, this is a must see for all inquisitive music lovers, managers, PR managers and especially music managers because what Malcom tells is sometimes ingenious - like the fact he himself send loads of anonymous hate mail to the media about his own band thus fueling a raged public and a media hype knowing that bad news travels much faster and further than good one. To quote Salvador Dali: "Its good when they talk about me even when they say good things."
All in all - its not a movie with a plot but a documentary of how a band is created using Sex Pistols as a brilliant example. I give it a 10/10 not for the film quality but for the lesson.