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Reviews
Next Stop Wonderland (1998)
Have a bottle of red with this one.
Are you a movie-watcher that enjoys intellectual stimulation rather than popcorn-mastication? Open a bottle of red and watch this movie. It's not fast-paced, it takes its time for you to come to get to know the characters, but it eventually gets where you want it to be. It's funny in a clever way, not in a slapstick way. People with high IQs tend to give this movie higher ratings. No offense to all the drongoes out there. I think this is a great film and an excellent choice for a nice, satisfying (again, I'm talking about intellectually satisfying) movie evening with your partner.
Silent Partner (2001)
portrait of a two-faceted friendship
This is a low budget movie. It was actually filmed for $10,000 US. It requires some effort to watch, but is very rewarding in return. Two friends--low-down drunk losers-- are given the chance to make some money with a racing dog loaned to them by some shady character we only get to know on the phone. And then they start to dream. While they are best friends, they are also worst enemies, because together they will destroy each other. Also the friendship is very unsymmetrical. One is very trusting and runs along with the other one, who is unintentionally deceptive and dominant. Through all that happens they must overcome their friendship so that it can perhaps be transformed. That is the only hope for the future that they have. I liked the film very much for its portrait style and its completeness in portraying. Many still-like shots of the two characters contribute to the portrait mode of the film. It was designed to work a little like a documentary. The director said at the Toronto Film Festival that the crew was intentionally kept unawares of the script so that they felt like they were shooting a documentary. For a low-budget film, this one is excellent, but you got to sit through it, friends. It's not Hollywood candy, but it's good for you.
Shrek (2001)
passionless pastiche of pop-culture
I did laugh several times during the movie. Yet some of the times I did, I could at the same time not suppress a feeling of uneasiness on account of the children sitting (and laughing) behind me. The jokes I am talking about were bordering on tastelessness and morbidity. Wiping one's behind seems to be a major motif in the movie, but that should perhaps be expected from Myers (whom I do enjoy in films designed for a mature audience). Yet exploding birds and inflated frogs are something I do not want my eventual children to see. Certainly the tips-of-the-hat, as for example to every fairy-tale I have ever heard, are funny, but that is all that the film consists of. There is no originality, all is a spin-off or spoof. The dialogues between the donkey and Shrek are funny if you are five years old and haven't seen Mulan (there Eddie Murphy lends his voice to the same side-kick character, the little dragon, where his now cliche joke slang had far more intelligence and originality), Aladdin or Hercules. Same old jokes, and even triter for the repetition. The only times I laughed were the above mentioned instances of risque tastelessness a la There's Something About Mary; I am not contradicting myself here, all I said was that they are absolutely unfit for an audience of children. Shrek is certainly a mirror unto our American Culture. Pro-wrestling, hip-hop slang and Myers' fake British accent a la mode, theme park parking lots and pop songs. All that assembled in a better-than-life digital pastiche, voila. More money for DreamWorks. They have the technology but lack the creativity. They have the precision but lack all passion. I felt curiously empty after the movie. And since when are the voices behind the animations so important that their names are all you see on the movie posters?
Der Richter und sein Henker (1975)
The book is even better, but untranslated.
I saw the movie a long time ago, in a class in (German) highschool. I remember being mesmerized by the book for which I can not find a translation in English. It's one of the greatest whodunits of all movie history. Baerlach the old Police Kommissaire has one more year to live due to illness just when a policeman is found dead on a country road near his native Swiss town. Baerlach lets his over-eager deputy Tschanz handle the investigation, knowing full well it will lead Tschanz to an old nemesis of Baerlach's, a criminal that he could never get his hands on. The investigations seem to be unsuccessful, but Baerlach knows something that Tschanz doesn't, and has a plan.