Grace Is Gone (2007)

final verdict for: "Grace Is Gone" (2007): this is one of those lucky picks, where you look at dvd's and buy something just because it looks interestingly different and find a treasure in disguise.

The plot is quickly summarized. John Cussack (with really odd glasses) receives message that his wife, an army official in Iraq, has been killed in combat and the rest of the movie more or less deals with his struggle to find a way to tell his two daughters. The plot itself however, is not what makes this movie so remarkeable.

John Cusack is one of those actors that quickly get overlooked for their roles in titles like "2012" (2009), despite their ability to truly excel if put in the right roles. In this movie he is right at home and the last time I saw him at home was, to be honest, in "Room 1408" (2007) and it seems to have gone downhill for him from there. In "Grace is Gone" however, he is at the height of his performing skills. You buy his character as the devastated and insecure father and widower right away.
Same can be said about the daughters who are truly performing in a very natural manner, at least on par if not more natural than Elle Fanning's performance in "Somewhere" (2010). Even minor characters, like Cusack's brother is in his role like he had never played anyone else in his life.

The camera work is truly remarkeable for a film that is shot outdoors for the most part as well. As many of you know, I am no big friend of the shakey cam and most films with outdoor sequences feature the shakey cam. Not this one. Or if it did it was so well masqued that I did not realize.
Similarly to "The Virgin Suicides" (1999) this movie uses color filters to warm the colors up and give it a vintage look. Whereas Coppola found a really subtle way to apply the color filters in her movie, James C. Strouse, this movie's director somehow overdid it. It still looks beautiful and is very fitting for the over-all atmosphere, but it feels forced at times, somehow too much.
The editing is remarkeable as well and one can't help but look to Sofia Coppola's films again, which might have served as an inspiration for the post-production design of "Grace is Gone", which is not a bad thing by all means. After all Coppola is one of the best in her subgenre (or category) and truly mastered editing and post-processing techniques so that they become the icing on the cake. This "borrowed" design plays a great part in creating this movie's athmosphere.

The last thing that constitutes a major contribution to the feel of the movie is the music and one finds a big surprise when looking up  the responsible person: Clint Eastwood. Even though I do not know if he composed any pieces or just found and arranged fitting songs, it has to be acknowledged what an outstanding job he did. There is not a single piece of music in this film that does not feel right in place.

I will not go into a philosophical debate about this one. How you like this movie is very much dependant on how much you can empathize with the situation and the characters. For me it was also a sentimental thing, because the places they visit look so much like place I have been to in the past. Nonetheless it is a great movie and if you stumble upon it somewhere, you should give it a watch and decide for yourself whether the Sundance Film Award that Strouse received is deserved or not.

As far as I am concerned, the answer is a clear "Yes! 8 out of 10!".

Somewhere (2010)

final verdict for: "Somewhere" (2010): This movie is probably more dependant on your expectation than any other movie out there.

Let me start off by saying two things: For one, this is one of Sophia Coppola's weaker, if not the weakest movies. That does not mean it is bad per se, the standards for her films are pretty high and having a weak one probably means it's still better than 60% of the other movies out there. It deserves a fair chance. Two, When I first saw the movie in cinema last year, around the same time, it outright bored me to death. the pretentious audience didn't help a tad there.

The story is quickly told, Stephen Dorff is a successful, but basically bored actor, who spends his days in Chateau Marmont in L.A. drinking, watching private strippers and falling asleep in the process, having sex with beautiful women and falling asleep in the process as well, women who go on hating him for what he did or did not do to them. When his daughter, played by Elle Fanning, has to live with him for a while, it first seems like nothing changes for Dorff, but one never knows how big the iceberg is below the surface.

Just by looking at how the movie is made, you quickly realize it's a production technique recycling of "Lost in Translation" (2003), so copying from that can be a good idea, but probably is not. Recycling is good for the environment, not for a movie.

Long shots where seemingly nothing is happening line up here, with little or no dialogue spoken. Oftentimes it feels downright eerie and out of place. Whereas Lost in Translation was plot driven after all and these scenes underlined the feeling of displacement in the unfamiliar environment that Johannson and Murray found themselves in, Somewhere lakes a developed plot. The situation however, is similar here: Even though Dorff is in his familiar environment, due to the lifestyle he leads, he more and more detaches from society and ultimately, life. So there is no problem with including these shots here, but Coppola took it over the top. Half as many or half as long would have been more than enough.

Surely, the acting is really good and Fenning wasn't even the big surprise. No, that was Dorff who I imagined to be unable to play a role like that before. The feelings these two express, feel so real that they grow close to you really quickly. The supportive cast, with the exception of Chris Pontius, who does a great job being himself, is basically without memorable character, but that is unnecessary for the movie anyway.

Not expecting any less, Sofia Coppola proved to have a good taste with her choice of music director here. Phoenix (the band), did a great job in providing music for the movie. Never does it feel out of place and always it perfectly underlines the scenes.

As for the camera and editing done, there is not much to complain about. The colour filters used are very good, they bring across the deceiving California sunshine atmosphere, which this movie is drawing from. As for the editing, it is mostly okay, but sometimes it feels unnatural, almost pretentiously artsy. For example the over-use of cut-to-black-cut-to-scene shots, where you are left with a second of black to consider, was present way too often in the movie to feel natural.

But these are details, what is it that makes this movie so ambiguous? Why is it that some people loved it, like the jury of the Venice film festival, who awarded the movie with the Golden Lion, and other people find it unwatchable?

Here’s what I found troubling when first seeing it: The movie doesn’t really seem to get going until the last 10 minutes, and it is 98 minutes long. It leaves you with a very ambiguous open end that will make you either love or hate Dorff, depending on what you think will happen after the last cut. The over-use of long, boring shots without dialogue. The lack of a clear plot line.

That should be enough, but believe me, there’s more. The thing is, however, that this movie is quite hard to understand, just as Lost in Translation might be hard to understand for someone who has never lived in a foreign culture and/or has trouble imagining it. Understanding Somewhere is even harder, because the culture that Dorff detaches himself from is basically our own. We see what he does and we feel familiar, because we know all this and still we think “What the hell is he doing?” Unfortunately his culture is not ours, even though we think it is. He has achieved what lots of people want to achieve, but little manage to do. He made the American Dream come true for himself, but it has turned into a Californian Nightmare. He goes to parties and award ceremonies with and of people he doesn’t know but who admire him, not as a person, but as a concept. They don’t care about the person Stephen Dorff, they want to have sex with the superstar Stephen Dorff.

The long exhibition of the movie, that seemingly shows no development on Dorff’s side serves the purpose of establishing that position he is in and painting a complex portrayal of the person, and nothing else. In order for us to understand what happens in the end and why, we need a complex introduction to the person, although Coppola admittedly overdid it.

Anyone who has read Bret Easton Ellis knows what is happening with Dorff here, that he is a very disillusioned and thus very bored upperclassman, who has nothing better to do than to spend his days like he does. Thus this portrayal of Dorff also becomes a critique of the lifestyle of the top 1%, especially in California, but a pitying critique. Dorff is not greedy or vile, he is a person that is meant to make us reconsider ourselves, just as he does in the end. Money and fame has brought him nowhere. When it comes to the end of the day, the only one who has been able to make him happy, was his daughter and that is where the message of this movie lies. It is very hidden and it takes a lot of background knowledge about the topic, especially in the California landscape, but that it is. 
Furthermore, it does not matter what happens next, the open end is no open end. His realization is a clear one, a turn to his daughter, he has undergone a catharsis (that is, by the way, also apparent in him wearing a clean and clear white shirt in the last shot), he leaves behind his Ferrari and for the first time ever, walks on his own. The slight smile on his lips is not the fake and trained smile that he used a million times before, it is a true smile, a smile of realization over the things that really matter in his life.

Bearing all this in mind and considering it, once realizes that the movie goes beyond endless boring shots, lack of plot and dialogue. The message here, matters more than the mode of deliverance, although it is a very carefully chosen one. And sometimes decisions seem to be wrong, until you understand the background to them and especially film is and should be a platform where to experiment with these things, without having to justify oneself for it.

Nonetheless, the movie has its flaws. Without discussing it, or doing some kind of research or having background knowledge, it is hard to really appreciate it and if that is not given, then at best it is an ambient movie that you can put in the player at a party to just accompany the mood of the party with it’s really bright and colourful imagery and well composed soundtrack.

Clearly it is not appealing to the audience it was intended for, with its over the top artsyness that sometimes even feels posh and like it wants to tell you “I am art, and you better appreciate me for that even though you don’t get me, or you will be exposed as a moron.”

Sometimes changing the recipe to fit the need, simply does not do the job. Had Sofia Coppola chosen another way to treat the topic than to go the Lost in Translation approach, this could have been far better.

From a point of view, where the necessary tools and knowledge to get Coppola here are there and given, I would give the movie 8 out of 10. However, she fails to deliver her message in a way that makes it accessible to all audiences and instead bores the average audience with long and, for the audience, pointless sequences, so I will go with a 6 out of 10. 
It’s a great movie, if you know what you’re dealing with, but it definitely not if that is not given.

The intention to create great art does seldom lead to the actual creation of it.

Bedtime Stories (2008)

final verdict for: "Bedtime Stories" (2008): Oh hello there Disney! Family Comedy? Sure, bring it on!

In this flick we find Adam Sandler in one of his typical roles. The little dumbie who deserves better (here by his father's last will), but is denied his luck by the guy who bought his father's hotel. When his sister, an elementary school principal has to go on a trip to get a new job after her school is planned for being closed, he gets to keep their children and through the bedtime stories he makes up with the kids and that gradually come true, little by little he is getting closer to reaching his aim, to become the hotel's manager as his father wished for him.
 
The plot itself is nothing special, it's basically a reiteration of countless Adam Sandler movies before. However, this movie reaches a perfection in this subgenre (if you may call it so) that is nowhere to be found in other Sandler comedies. The story is very well developed and truly holds something for the whole family. The small bedtime stories, alongside the (admittedly weird) guinea pig, are great for children and the struggle of Sandler and the love story that goes along with it are appealing for their parents.
 
The actors' perfomances are as good as they can get, given the type of movie we are confronted with. Nothing outstanding, but solid enough. And thanks god, Courtney Cox didn't have enough screen time to ruin this movie, as she usually does with everything she is involved with.
 
Camera, editing and music are good too. As with the performance, there are no surprises, but it does the job very well.
 
The only real downside of this one is the deus ex machina ending, that seemingly comes out of nowhere, to to ensure an otherwise impossible happy ending.
 
The use of frame narration is another thing that was put into really good use here.
 
Over-all, I was more than happy with this one. Light entertainment that deserves not too much of thinking, but more leaning back and enjoying the well thought through story to the very end.
 
A good 7 out of 10, as far as I am concerned!

Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005)

final verdict for: "Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God" (2005): a fantasy tale that would be a good representation for what the Pen&Paper game stands for, if it hadn't been for the budget.

Set roughly 100 years after the original "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000), one of the arch enemies returns as an undead striving to live a human life again and seeking revenge by reviving an ancient undead dragon. Only a group of adventurers has it in their hands to go and find a magical item that would be able to prevent certain doom to the realm.

After the abomination that was the original D&D, expectations were quite down, fans of the genre and strangers to it alike found it to be one of the worst fantasy movies ever made and being familiar with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you can only shake your head over that piece of crap. The second installment however, got the biggest issue of the first one right: a believable fantasy script (believable from a fantasy point of view). The storyline is very linear and follows the typical game scheme and watching the movie you could almost feel the underlying campaign setting.

Another huge pro are the characters and actors that play them. All of them are believable fantasy stereotypes, but instead of going for something unbelievable new, they went with the stereotypes and delivered the typical fantasy characters without any unnecessary extras, which si perfectly fitting for the setting.

The music is really good as well, especially considering the low budget, this movie had to struggle with. Typical fantasy epic orchestra tunes mingle with folkloristic town music, as you aould expect it and are used to from games like "Baldur's Gate".

This movies biggest problem truly was the budget. The script was really good, the cast actors as well and the music is splendid too. But looking at the cinematography and the special effects, the low budget really shows. It really is a shame. Had this movie had the budget of the first one, it could have been a movie that would truly have been a good representation of the game, that fans could have been proud of.

Alas, that was not the case and so this movies suffers from several issues. First of all, it is still set in the same city as the first movie, but to cut CGI costs, the city now looks like an average medieval city and not the magical megalopolis of the first one, which is actually more fitting in my opinion. However, there are several other inconsistency problems like this one and especially towards the end, the movie feels very rushed. Characters, that were developed in detail before are'nt seen until the very end, arms that were cut off reappear and over all one feels they were running out of money and had to quickly finish their work. To truly make all ends meet, the movie would have needed at least 20 more minutes.

Despite all these problems, it was still a very enjoyable movie and true to the source material, which is a huge biggie in the genre. To me this is an injustly underrated movie and I award it 7 out of 10 RP (Rating Points).

Alaska (1996)

final verdict for: "Alaska" (1996): Admittedly a guilty pleasure, but one that does not stand the test of time, unfortunately.

After losing their mother a small family moves to Alaska, because their father wants to start a new life as a commercial delivery aviator there. When he gets lost in a storm and seemingly can not be found, his 2 children set out to find their lost father. Befriending a bear, they do not only find their father, but also their way to surviving in the frontier conditions and ultimately, their maturity.

I have known this movie for a long time and remember loving it when watching it as a kid. When I started a research project about Alaska two years ago, I decided to use this film and gave it a rewatch and was disappointed. Two years have passed and as I am wrapping up the paper, I gave it another try, but it was no good.

There are two good things about this movie. A: The landscape and B: Charlton Heston, basically playing the gun loving guy he probably really was. Those two were also the only believable things in the movie.

Thora Birch, Vincent Kartheiser and Dirk Benedict give it their best, but they stay uncredible. Especially Birch and Kartheiser oftentimes act in a way that only children will buy and you often sense that they are only acting after given directions.

The plot itself is nicely thought, a modern spirit journey if you will, but the premis is so ridiculous, Jack London would be ashamed of it. These two survive so many situations that would be lethal for even the most skilled and gifted survival adventurer that it makes you shake your head, especially considering that the movie wants us to believe these two kids come from the city and have basically no frontier experience.

The music in this movie is okay, they made it to fit the agasping athmosphere, with the beautiful landscapes, but it is over the top. There is only so and so many orchestral scores with choir, you can stand before it gets boring.

The camera work istelf is well done most of the times, except for minor moments where the camera crew is visible in shadow or the zoom lens chosen in a wrong moment. However this good work gets killed by the editing most of the time, which edits shots together that anyone can spot out as not belonging together, be it, because of obvious changes in the background of because of clothing errors in between shots.

It's really sad, seeing, how this movie could have been so much more, but used so little of his potential. The references to native alaskan culture and how they are linked to the lives of these Chicago kids was a really clever idea and the movie even managed to deliver a certain environmental message. Unfortunately though, these good intents are overshadowed by the poor execution, but hey, that's what you get for letting your son direct the movie, Charlton!

A freezing 4 out of 10 for this sad example of "could have been real good!"

Atonement (2007)

final verdict for: "Atonement" (2007): Another example for a good movie that is almost ruined by a WTF-ending.

Set in pre- and war-UK the story of what could, what would and what should have been is told, when a girl dooms the relationship of a loving couple through things she does not yet understand.

I am not a big fan of Keira Knightley, but admittedly, her performance is rock-solid. So is the performance of the rest of the cast. The roles were close to perfectly cast, wtih only minor characters whose character were more represented through their look and appearance than through their actions and dialogue.

However good the music, cinematography and directing are, there are certain bothering elements. A brilliant movie will use stylistic devices, such as POV in a way that the audience does not recognize them. A bad movie does not use stylistic devices. And this movie uses them so blatantly obvious that they loose all meaning, because they are so obvious you don't need to use your brain. There'S the POV-shots that establish the fact between real incidents and incidents as they are interpreted by the girl. There is lighting and style in the design of the pre-war scenery mansion that is more reminiscent of the Narnia movies than the 1930's and there's the obnoxious long shot that is very well executed, but so blatantly obvious in its meaning you'd wish it wasn't there.

Another example from the same corner is the music. It is brilliant and when you first realize the clicking of the type-writer is incorporated into the music, you are very satisfied, as it is a very clever move. However, after hearing it around 15 times it becomes a hit in the face with the hint-hammer.

The whole composition feels forced, almost like a final exam entry from a film student with a multi-million dollar budget. Joe Wright obviously knew how to do these stylistic devices, but not how to incorporate them with subtlety. The over-the-top artsyness kills a lot of the sympathy one develops for the characters and their story, since the plot really is brilliant.

Lastly the ending. it is another hammer-to-the-face moment. Out of nowhere it hits you and confronts you with something nobody would see coming, but it is not a clever move, but another sloppish use of a stylistic device, the "unexpected twist". Usually the twist is at least somewhat hinted at as not to leave the audience with a "WTF" on their lips. Atonement doesn't and thus has said expression written all over its ending. Not that it does not make sense, it does, but why couldn't you at least build a tiny little frame for the audience to drop back to?

All in all the movie is one to be loved and hated at the same time. The story and characters are well written, the scenes and production design looks accurate and leaves the impression of 40's and 50's war movies, which has become rare these days. The music itself is brilliant too, but the whole composition feels forced in and out.

Thus, I give this film a 6 out of 10. Big potential, but a lot of it lost through wanting and trying more than competence necessitated.

Cloverfield (2008)

final verdict for: "Cloverfield" (2008): J.J. Abrams should be in prison for this thing.

A movie that does a lot of things right, but does just as many if not more, wrong. The story is as old as filmmaking itself. A giant monster attacks New York. We've all seen it a thousand times before. However this movie lacks unlikely hero-figures that have the brilliant idea, that blows the monster to pieces. It has pointless heroicism however.

Let's begin with the actors. The choice was really good and the main cast plays their role absolutely convincingly and comprehensable, so there must have gone a good deal of the planning time into character development. The side characters play little to no role in the movie itself, but had a huge role in the viral marketing campaign that went along with the movie (though, it's getting OLD Mr Abrams!), but we'll come to that later.

The camera. Shaky cam. If you read these reviews regularly, you probably know I am not a big fan of the shakey cam. I have to say though, that the use of the camera itself is pretty good! However, the cuts are ridiculous, nobody who knows anything about camera hardware will buy the cuts with a tape recorder to be like this. Also, the filter of the camera is just too good, so that's unrealistic as well. A flashlight of that power on a handycam? Nah! Same goes for nightvision of that quality. Go fool someone else.
The pace of the movie, on the other hand, is really good and you watch the horror unfold in awe without a single moment to really catch your breath.

Thankfully there is no music, so at least that stays realistic.

Behold, here come my issues with the movie. It is set in New York. Okay that has been done before, but Abrams uses a stylistic device that filled me with shame for him. In the very first scenes when the monster attacks New York and buildings crumble, Abrams shamelessly recycled arrangements from 9/11 footage. Settings, angles, progressions, it was all a copy of those events and it would be okay if the use of the lessons lerned in those days (in terms of how crumbling buildings would look realistically) had been more subtle, I would have been okay with it, but the that pictures from 9/11 are shamelessly replicated here, just fills me with disgust.

The next thing is the anti-japanese sentiment. You don't find that by watching the movie, but if you follow the viral marketing campaign that was started around the movie to provide background information, you find it. First it seems to be a friendly nod to the "Godzilla" movies, but the more you read the worse it gets, as it views the japanese as a brutal profitseeking people that will go any way to make profit and are ultimately responsible for the attack on New York as they accidentally awaken the monster, searching for substances on the sea-floor and then watch the catastrophe unfold without helping.

The viral marketing campaign itself however is really clever and sucks you deeper and depper into the cloverfield mystery that is even today, 3.5 years after the movie not completely solved and leaves space for sequels.

The end of the movie was also very bold, I will not spoil it for you, but you will be surprised no matter what.

As I said in the beginning, the movie is neither good nor bad, as it confronts the audience with a lot of bold decisions in terms of plot and storytelling. However, the shameless exploitation of traumatic pictures that are reminiscent of real life events and negative sentiments that date back to the 1940's leave you with a very bad taste in your mouth.

Final verdict? Guilty on all accounts. The movie is sentenced to a score of 4 out of 10.

The court is hereby dismissed!