Due to some thesis stress it has been a while since I've watched a movie, but I finally found time to go the Filmhuis in The Hague with a friend. The choice was between Ryan Gosling's Lost River and the Dutch production Atlantic. Perhaps unfortunately, we choose for the latter. The premise of the film is pretty decent: a Moroccan fisherman who happens to be a proficient windsurfer falls in love with one of his Dutch visitors and decides to make it across the Mediterranean Sea by windsurfing, probably to visit her. The story starts with the beginning of this journey and as the film unfolds this journey is interwoven with everything that precedes it. We learn that since he has lost his mother he feels lost in life, especially since he falls in love with a woman who is impossible to attain. The metaphor of windsurfing is therefore very apt, since it is easy to get lost out on the ocean. While the cinematography of the film is great and the aerial footage of our protagonist surfing out on the open ocean is amazing, the film just checks off too many cliches of pretentious art-house cinema. Many shots seem incredibly unmotivated, there is gloomy, pseudo-poetic voice-over narration, and of course the endlessly repeated trope of the ethnic, non-white person doing this extraordinary thing we should all see. I do appreciate how our protagonist seems to be granted with enough agency to make his journey a personal trip and not one motivated by economic necessity, even though there are hints at the great Other across the ocean that exerts influence over his life. Ultimately, however, the whole thing was a bit too tedious for me and at a certain point I simply found I didn't really care about the characters anymore.
Dredd (3,5*)
Superhero movies or comic adaptations are usually not particularly ma thang, so this is a film I would not have easily picked out to watch myself. However, since this is top-10 material for my gf, it was bound to happen that I would see this film at some point. I'm glad I did, because this was straight up, no-nonsense entertainment. In a post-apocalyptic world where everyone seems to have lost their moral sense and crime reigns high, judges are the only ones who seem to care about what happens to the world. Dredd is one of these ruthless judges and one day he takes a female rookie with paranormal abilities under his wings to do a routine checkup in a massive apartment complex. They find the perps and all seems to go well, but since they also arrested an important informant, gang-leader and rules of the block Mama, bad-ass female villain played by Lena Headey, decides to close the entire apartment complex and urges everyone to kill the two judges. This is a very bleak premise since they have no way to get out and an entire block is chasing them. Luckily, Dredd's incredible power combined with Anderson's psychic abilities get them through. What makes this film so appealing is, first of all, that while the action scenes are pretty intense, they never get stretched out too long. Second of all, the film contains some beautiful slow-motion imagery that is actually narratively justified since it conveys the experience of taking the slo-mo drug. Thirdly, the female characters are not helpless victims, but have a lot of agency. When Anderson gets caught she is not rescued by Dredd, but frees herself and eventually even rescues Dredd from a seemingly certain death. Finally, Dredd is just a great character. He has some sweet badass one-liners and it is funny that we never really see his face. All the acting that Karl Urban does is with his mouth and he does it very well. All the small nuances of the mouth vividly express Dredd's emotion or mental state. So while in essence this film is purely about entertainment, there are enough factors that make this into an outstanding film.
Twilight (2,5*)
Everyone who has visited the internet every now and then in the last six years knows that Twilight has been wrecked to pieces by everyone 'with a decent taste in movies'. However, in cases like this, films are often being destroyed due to their fanbase, which especially in this case makes it an easy target, rather than actual artistic merits. Nevertheless, since a film about teenage romance between a vampire and a naive teenage girl does not really appeal to me that much, I never took the time to watch the film. One time, I have seen some parts of it on TV and without admitting it, I was a little intrigued by the strange color palette that is used. Now, I finally got to see the film from beginning to end. Basically, there are plenty of reasons why this film is indeed not worth of anyone's time, but granted, at the same time it does have a lot of redeeming qualities. What makes this a bad film is primarily the HORRIBLE dialogue which does not seem to have been revised after its first draft. Sometimes it's so cringeworthy it gets fun, but mostly it is just cringeworty. Also, the film's actual plot only starts to unfold about two-thirds into the film, which does not really make sense. Oh, and why on earth would a vampire be sparkly? Nevertheless, the film is pretty entertaining. The battle scenes are quite fun and some of the effects used are pretty cool. As mentioned, its color palette also gives it a unique charm that, especially compared to other teenage movies (which it essentially is), is actually quite dark. However, most of all, watching this film genuinely made me quite curious about the next one, which is, whatever way you twist it, a good sign. Considering that this film was made as a simple independent production that just happened to blow up the way it did, I feel this movie deserves a lot more slack than it has received.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (1,5*)
Whereas the previous film was already borderline bad, let there be no doubt that this one definitely is. Due to some small hints at the Jakob story in the first part, I was kind of excited about how that would evolve in this part. What I got was a lot of Jakob's abs, lots of jeans shorts, some bad CGI, and most of all very little compelling narrative. Dialogues in this film are still horrible and Bella's crazy infatuation seems to be taken a step further. Looking at this in light of gender politics actually makes it really fucked up, because why is she not able to function without a man at her side? After being dumped by Edward she slowly falls for Jakob before finally making the obvious choice by going back to her sparkly vampire. What I am most offended by, however, is the complete lack of action in this film. When you think about it, literally nothing happends. The evil vampires that haunt Bella do not get close to her and then she goes to Italy to save her emo vampire to stop him from killing himself. There are a couple of action scenes that should pass as exciting, but compared to the previous film, which actually had a way smaller budget, these scenes make little to no impact. All in all, it seems like this part is a transition film that builds up to the action that we will find in the next film. Unfortunately I am afraid part three will not be much better.
Harry Brown (2*)
I am normally not the type to be really nitpicky about the political/ideological message of a film if it is not too overly explicit and if it is a film I enjoy. However, with Harry Brown, I feel the representation of youth violence is so twisted that it genuinely affected my pleasure watching this film. The bleak first scene already sets the stage when two guys on a scooter semi-accidentally shoot a woman that is strolling around with her baby. While the boys are fleeing the scene they get hit by a truck and die. Apart from the fact that this never gets mentioned in the rest of the film, it is highly unrealistic representation of youth violence in Britain. Nobody ever gets shot out of nothing in broad daylight. This kind of excessive violence is maintained throughout the rest of the film. Every working class youth is portrayed as a twisted and psychotic human being, incapable of participating in society. Harry Brown (played by Michael Caine), the sober yet strong (ex-marine) old man that gets heavily affected by this violence when his wife and only friend die goes out on a warpath to kill every person that has been involved in the killing of his friend. It's such a simple-minded, conservative fantasy to think that going out to kill everyone that is supposedly a bad person in the name of justice is actually righteous. Because what is this justice? The film completely neglects the systematic discrimination and neglect the elements that force young people to relapse to violence, drugs and criminal behavior. I would say that battling that problem would be far more admirable. In any case, Michael Caine is a good actor, particularly for this role, but not good enough to save this film from its horribly simplistic and sensationalist view on society. Oh, and the CGI that is used to portray blood in this film is ridiiiiiiiculously fake.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (1,5*)
In all honesty, I was asleep during large parts of it near the end. However, the reason I'm giving this 1,5, rather than 1, as I did with the previous one, is that I had the feeling that this one was a little denser and action-packed. Instead of just drawing out the incredibly dull and messed up romance between Bella and Edward, there was actually some werewolf vs vampire combats going on. While I was slightly exited about what would happen next after the first one, the feeling has completely vanished by now. However, I will remain strong and watch the rest of the films.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (1*)
Yeah, so this is the one where Bella and Edward finally get married (this whole thing is stretched out for 30 minutes), have sex one, and Bella gets pregnant. (I guess Edward shoots some super potent vampire goo). Then this mutant-vampire baby gets too big for Bella's precious body and everyone starts spazzing out over it. She almost dies, but then becomes a vampire. Oh and Jakob makes some shirtless appearances every now and then. It's very clear that the decision to spread out the last book in two films is a poor one, because literally nothing of interest happens in this film. Besides that, this might be the most ridiculous one of the series so far. Edward is a super abusive husband who does not let Bella have any say in her pregnancy, the whole werewolf feud makes no sense to me, and why is vampire sex such a big deal?? BOO!!
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