Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

final verdict for: "Everything Is Illuminated" (2005): This movie is not only one about a young man's journey to the past, it is a journey by itself.

Elijah Wood plays a young jewish man, sets out to a journey to Ukraine to find the traces of his families past, when a photo of his grandmother is presented to him by his grandmother on her deathbed. But what the compulsive collector is about to find will not only change his life, but also that of the Ukrainian heritage tourguide.

There are few things to criticize about this movie, which is why I will start with the flaws. First of all, Elijah Wood does a really good job acting his role. However he seems to be too stiff even for the role he is playing. He is giving his best and he is convincing, I am not saying he is not, but it just does not feel right. Elijah Wood has probably been playing the same roles too often to broaden his horizon for a role like this, even if he has the trade's skills.

The second point is the depiction of Ukraine in the film. I have to admit, I have not been to Ukraine in my life and I may not be qualified to make complaints, but the way the country is depicted makes it seem like it got stuck in soviet 1970's and even though the independance took place the people stayed the same and the symbols of the Soviet regime started rotting away. Everything seems to be reminiscent of the bygone "glory" of the era and left to decay. As I said, I do not quailfy to make a statement here, but I would think the Ukraine of 2004 to have looked a bit different than that. Correct me if I am wrong.

That's it. That is what I have to complain about. The actors are brilliant, the music is likewise, as well as the cinematography (including used color filters - and that is rare!), the pace of narration, it just all falls into place and left an impression on me that only "The Pianist" (1999) was able to leave so far.

There are so many layers to explore in this movie that as soon as it'S over you want to watch it again and it saddens me greatly that there are so many things, that I know are there, but that I can not understand. I will not be able to understand the nuances in the dialogue as I don't speak the language and subtitles are always shallow signifiers and I will also never understand the underlying jewish mythology in this piece of art.

I cannot say in how far the film differs from the book (as I have yet to read it), but since Jonathan Safran Foer has a cameo, he must have agreed with the movie.

If you want to watch a beautiful movie with great music, well developed characters, a multilayer cake of a story and that can both make you laugh and deeply move you, then clearly you should watch "Everything Is Illuminated".

An 8 out of 10.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

final verdict for: "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961): To be honest I do not get what makes this movie a classic.

The story is ridiculous and horribly written, even for 60's standards, the characters are shallow, the music (except for maybe the main theme, which they rape over and over again) is forgettable and the cinematography is nothing special either.

Sure, Hepburn and Peppard are acting okay, but even that is nothing special. There's gender and social role stereotypes all over the place and on top of that it's mildly racist towards the Japanese (which in 1961 was in my opinion not the road to forgiving each other).

The only thing that really saves this movie from being a complete disaster for me is the cat, he is super-cute and cool! Seldomly have I seen an animal in a movie that well trained. If they hadn't saved the poor thing in the rain in the end, I would have thrown this DVD out of the window.
Sad to say that a trained animal side character is what makes this movie memorable, but that's how it is.

So, not a classic for me. Unless you argue the cat makes it classic. Then and only for that reason, I will agree.

Other than the cat, long, boring, shallow, forgettable: A 3 out of 10. At best.

Eight Men Out (1988)

final verdict for: "Eight Men Out" (1988): A sports-film. Finally.

Big thanks to Volkan, who gave me this movie, I'm glad, I finally had the time to watch it.

As a resident by choice of Iowa, you have to know "Field of Dreams" (1989) and connected to it, eternally, Shoeless Joe Jackson. I will not make this a history lesson of baseball, but it shall be said, that he may or may not have been part in the 1919 world series controversy and that is what this film is about.

I imagine it to be very hard to enjoy this film if you are not familiar with baseball and/or the world series controversy. If you are, however, this movie is for you and you are able to dive right into the time and games, the cinematography provides very well for that, the music is fitting for the time and the actors (most and foremost Charlie Sheen and John Cussack) are giving this their best.

However, if you don't know much about baseball or the controversy, following this movie will be very hard, as the focus is different from that of baseball-flicks like "Major League" (1989), which can be enjoyed without the knowledge of baseball.

Giving a proper rating here is really hard. If you fall into category one, then this will be an 8 out of 10 as you are right in the action, but if you are category two, then it will be a 5 out of 10 at best.
I enjoyed the movie very much, but I am a baseball-wannabe-enthusiast and taking the limits of the movie into consideration, I will go with a very good 6 out of 10.

Play ball!

Before Sunset (2004)

final verdict for: "Before Sunset" (2004): What usually happens with sequels is that they ruin the original. Everyone knows this. "Jaws" was great, but "Jaws II"? Meh. But "Before Sunset" is one of the very few examples where a relatively week original is heightened to brilliance by its sequel.

Nine Years after their night in Vienna, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpie meet again in Paris, where Hawke runs promotion for his book in which he describes that one magical night. They decide to spend the afternoon together before he has to catch his flight back home to New York, to his wife and son.

The cinematography is just about as brilliant as in the original, even a tad better, as the cut and camera-work pick up elements from the original and incorporate and vary it here. The end-cut through the sets of the night from the first one is the stage opener in the sequel, just with Paris being the stage. The flashbacks we see are so nicely incorporated that it almost feels as if the first movie was not what actually happened, but what he describes in his novel. An idea that I like very much as it would explain what I identified as flaws to be plot elements of novel-storytelling (but I guess that's my wishful thinking).

The music is mostly good, but has brilliant moments, like the songs written and sung by Julie Delpie that directly relate to the story of the film and actually even seem to be part of the film. It's like being a ghost that follows them, it knows her songs and knows where to put them in the right spot, even though Hawke doesn't know about them yet.

The story itself really surprised me, because Linklater was able to accomplish here, what he failed in doing in the original movie and he does it so brilliantly that it makes you think, it was done on purpose and part of the story in the original. Hawke and Delpie have grown up and out of the stereotypes they were. This leads to the viewer realising, what was so stereotypical about the two in the original might not have been bad writing, but simply the flaw of being young. Their characters could not have been fully developed and they still had dreams and ideals that they deem stupid now. It all falls into place perfectly.

Oh and the ending, I won't give anything away, but say this much: It's relatively open, but perfect!

I will give this movie a 9 out of 10, because it was a real surprise and it was really well written a prime example of how a production can do a great movie.

I also will give a rating to the two movies in combination now, which is a first and will probably stay a rare exception. I will not withdraw my rating for the first one, because if you watch it independently, which you had to for 9 years until the make-up came out, it really does not make sense. However if you watch both movies right after each other, you will get a really great experience that will stay with you for a long time, as you will be able to communicate with what the characters are going through.

My final verdict for "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" combined is: 8 out of 10.

Very special procedure for a very special two-parter.

Before Sunrise (1995)

final verdict for: "Before Sunrise" (1995): I picked this up a long time ago, started to watch it, put it back to the box and ignored it for over 5 years. Now I put myself through it.

Ethan Hawke meets Julie Delpy in a train to Vienna and convinces her to spend the night before he leaves to the US together with him in Vienna. Of course it's a love story.

Let's talk about the good things first. The cinematography is really good, perspective and shot arrangement are really well chosen, especially the montage towards the end that recaptures the places of their journey through the night in morning light is really great.

The music is okay, as cheesy as generic as you would expect, but not getting on your nerves, though forgettable.

The characters, however, should have been the movie's greatest element, but it fails horribly at it. In the beginning of the movie the two tell each other that they don't want to be the stereotypical french and american people and all through the movie they try to prove it. But the only thing they do prove in the end is the confirmation. Ethan Hawke is the typical mysterious American youngster on a sould journey through old europe. That topic is about as old as US-american storytelling itself, just ask Henry James about it. Julie Delpie is depicted as exactly what too many people think about french women: easily impressed, mildly esoterical/alternative and rather sophisticated. Also they are very stereotypical in their attitudes. Ethan Hawke is the negative guy, who will whine just about everything. Julie Delpy is so positive, it makes you suffocate and yet so easily influenced that she doesn't seem to have an opinion of her own.

What this leads to is all their talk, and the movie mainly consists of talk, being surface phrasing and pseudo-intellectual/spiritual bullshitting about life and it's purpose and so on. Yabber Yabber. I would have been able to stand this for half an hour, especially since Hawke and Delpy are performing really well and close to real life. But not for 105 minutes.

There is no character development whatsoever, not that I expected this, given the fact that all of this is happening in one night, but with characters so boring and flat it gets unbearable.

In the end, all that's left is a nice portfolio of shots of Vienna in the mid 90's and a hell of a lot boring discussions.

However, if there's one thing the movie makes me curious about is, whether the sequel ("Before Sunset" 2004) is better and where it leads the characters, 9 years after their first encounter.

I am really wondering, where the IMDB-rating of 8.1 comes from, but I am not willing to give this more than 4 out of 10.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

final verdict for: "Planet of the Apes" (2001): This is the perfect example for not only how the attempt to revive a franchise can horribly fail, but also how it can completely ruin it. Anyone who has ever seen the 1968 original will feel incredibly insulted by this piece of crap. 

It starts off fine, but the moment Mark Wahlberg crashlands on the planet it's going down the drain. The movie is all over the place but stays nowhere. The characters are sterotypical and undergo no development whatsoever. The arrangements of shots oftentimes doesn't make sense at all. For example when they are fleeing the city they are running through all these bedrooms of completely unrelated people, implying that all bedrooms of the freaking city are connected. Wait, what?? Why?? Also there are so many things that don't make sense. So the humans crashlanded on the planet and the apes they brought along then got intelligent (somehow) and took over. Okay. But how the hell did the horses get there? Did they have horses on the space station? Why?? Was there a riding range somewhere on the ship? Or did they have spacesuits for the horses to ride them in space?? 

The music was as nice as it could get, Danny Elfman did okay here, heard better from him though. The cinematography was average as well, at least no shakey cam (which it certainly would have had if it had been made in 2011). The actor's performance was slumpy at best, especially Mark Wahlberg seemed only to have one face expresseion whatsoever. 

The ending saves this movie from being a complete failure and the message is, although expected, a good one. Gives the name Ape Lincoln a whole new dimension.

So to sum it up: What the hell was Tim Burton thinking? Was he like on rehab when he made this? Here you go: 1968 version > 2001 remake.
 

This deserves nothing more than 3 out of 10. one for the good special effects, one for the okay beginning and end of the movie, half a point each for the music and the female sidekick. And the latter being allocated to be considered for the movie says a lot about the quality of the movie in general.
 

Watch the original and avoid this piece of crap.