The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

final verdict for: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008): Uff.. That was tough. I needed two sessions to get through this movie. Not because it was bad, it wasn't. It simply was too intense to go through it in one sitting. 

I knew the short story by Fitzgerald and was very curious about what Fincher would do to it. And it turns out, he did what seems to be close to impossible for most other directors. Not only did he turn a work of literature into a worthy movie, but also managed to shift the historical background, without ruining the original story (Kurosawa was very good at that too and in my opinion one of very few). 

Two frame stories narrate this movie and both of then are set into being brilliantly. The camera work is just beautiful, so is the music. Always setting or fitting the mood, Blues blends into ambient orchestra music and really helps conveying the picture of New Orleans in the first half of the 20th century and beyond. The filters used give it a look that always seems to be fitting the era we are in and the spirit of the time carries over very well. 

The choice in actor's is splendid and all of them perform absolutely convincingly. Pitt and Blanchett are marvellous here and even though Pitt seems to be a little uninterested at times it still seems to fit the character. Only bummer here is the relatively poor use of CGI on the young/old Pitt, as you clearly see it's computer generated and that too a point, where it becomes a nuisance. Fortunately enough though it is not needed for a too long time.

Never before have I seen a movie dealing with life in such a way. It is so cheerful and happy about life and yet at the same time reminding the viewer of mortality, a perfect equilibrium between "Carpe Diem" and "Memento Mori" establishes that leaves you absolutely breathless and left me with tears in my eye as the movie neared its end.
 

If you have enough energy to sit through this long movie (166min), you will definitely be rewarded, but make sure to bring a box of tissues.
 

With only few points to critcize, I will go with the well earned rating, the IMDB gives for this one: With 8 out of 10.

The Gypsy Warriors (1978)

final verdict for: "The Gypsy Warriors" (1978): Anyone got a spare DeLorean? Cause I want to go back in time and stop myself from buying this film for 50c. 

It is one of those movies where the cover looks better than the whole of the film, although it has little to do with it. Tom Selleck as special task force member against the Nazis. The formula is easy enough, eh? Magnum in the 40's, what's so difficult? Instead we get around 8 minutes introduction with a horrible narrator (who comes back in the end! UARGH!!!) and 4 sketch drawings of Nazis in Uniform... For 8 minutes... 

Then we get the backstory for another 8 minutes. Completely irrelevant as well. Then we get the opening credits (depending on your version of this piece of shit). A catchy tune and a M*A*S*H/Hogan's Heroes style intro. And here the thing becomes clear. This never was supposed to be a movie. It was supposed to be a TV Series and this was the sorry excuse for a Pilot! 

My god was this thing bad. Horrible acting on all sides, horrible music, lowest quality camera and editing work (even by the low late 70's standards) and an uninspiring story. Seriously, I could go on and on about this movie, but I would gain nothing from it, and neither would you. I wasted 77 minutes, watching this garbage and I advise you not to. 

1 out of 10 and even that one only for having accent-free German-speaking Nazis. 

 SERIOUSLY? HOW COULD AANNYYOONNEE FUCK THAT UP? It's Magnum killing Nazis! I could have done better than that! Give him a railgun and let him shoot Nazis for 77 minutes nonstop: There! Better movie than "Gypsie Warriors"! Actually I will deduct 0.999 from the final score. Having a few german expats in there is not worth a whole point. Final verdict: 0.001 out of 10.

Up in the Air (2009)

final verdict for: "Up in the Air“ (2009): First of all my BIG THANKS go to Sven Vorbeck for the generous gift that is this DVD, sorry I haven’t reviewed it earlier. 

Some of you may remember less my favourable final verdict for “Thank You for Smoking” (2005), actually I think it was my second or third. This movie shares the same superstructure, but does a lot better at it. Different from TYfS there is no unnecessary female sidekick here. The sidekicks in this movie matter a lot and contribute greatly to the overall story arc. Without them... the whole thing would not work. That is a great plus. 

Musicwise, Jason Reitman has greatly learned from “Juno” (2007) and has implemented this here. In fact I would go as far as to say that this movie takes all the rights from Juno and TYfS, leaves out the wrongs and mingles them very well together. I’ll admit, the movie is a little lengthy at times, but it’s manageable and you will be rewarded for every lengthy passage with one vibrating with life and emotion. However Reitman has a bit of a problem with simply incorporating too many details. Certain things are introduced and only briefly picked up later to make ends meet and that feels forced at times (the 10 million miles, or giving some of them away). 

The sporadically use of the shaky cam is another downside of the movie; it would have worked just as well with regular means of filming. Why attempt documentary style in a movie that does not try to be documentary at any point? My last piece of concern is the ending (happens quite often lately), which leaves the viewer completely puzzled about what changes have taken place and in how far Clooney’s character has changed and what his future implications are. 

Overall a very enjoyable film and well worth your time, although with a couple of dents and cracks here and there. A solid 7 out of 10!

Berserker (2004)

final verdict for: "Berserker" (2004): The German title for this one was: "Thor - God's Berserk" (roughly translated), which got me curious. Wasn't Thor a god himself? I got the movie and watched it and sadly it has nothing to do with Thor. There's one character whose name (according to the credits) was Thorsen, namely the king whose role wasn't very big.  

This movie was interesting for one part in particular that most A and B-movies in the genre get wrong, but doesn't make it a whole lot better. As with so many others there is a part in our time and a part in the distant past. Usually the part in the distant past looks really shitty and ill-researched, whereas the present part looks somewhat okay. This movie twists the whole thing around. 

First you see 25 minutes of viking action that, although the post-production effects look like I did them in Vegas Pro, was real fun! The characters seemed to be flat but fitting and the cinematography and music were okay too (especially the music). Then it hits you like a lightning (or the hammer of Thor, hrhr), when the setting changes to the present and the whole thing looks like it'll erupt into porn any moment (actually it almost does at one point). Here the dialogue is shitty and the characters aren't fitting anymore and the audience is left guessing what the hell is going on, although that sort of works and is explained in bits and pieces throughout. 

The end-fight and revelations there are satisfying and give you one or another surprise, but the ultimate ending is so horrible I can't even put it in words. It's almost as if the people involved wanted to rob it off its last piece of credibility. The movie had you side with the villain the whole time, because the hero is so dorkily naive anyway, but that ending makes you wish the hero got his head chopped off instead of the villain.
 

Summing up here is not easy. It was a pretty bad movie, but the idea behind the story was interesting and also different from the usual Highlander approach. You can clearly feel and see this is a B-movie production with a rather low budget, but they showed a lot of dignity in production and tried to make the best out of what they had, which still isn't much, don't get me wrong. I

would give the viking segment of this movie 7 out of 10, because it really sucked me in even though the characters were flat and the effects far beyond shitty. The present part however is worth 2 stars at best (3 if you give one for the boobs), because there nothing was right, except for the music and the performance of the villain who somehow managed to stay as he should have. I will give this one 4,5 out of 10, because it was really okay for a Swedish fantasy B-movie. 

Oh, did I mention it'S from Sweden? It's from Sweden!  

Actually it's from South Africa and the UK and from 2001. Other Sources say it's a US-swedish coproduction from 2007. Make your choice. I liked the idea of it being from Sweden.