adipocea Reviews

Beyond the Hills (2012)

Am I the only disappointed?

[6/10 · 18 January 2013]

Well,I wanted desperately, not to like, to love this movie... All the premises were there, I couldn't wait for the film to be released... But, as the film was developing in front of my eyes, I was completely feeling less...No attachment to the girls, I didn't even care for one damn second about any of them, the film scratches everything that is supposed to carve upon, the director seems in a hurry to reach something that slips between his fingers...I felt no compassion for that girl, in some moments I was about to scream to her, get out of that place, girl, return to Germany, live your life and put ourselves out of the misery of watching this movie!And one more thing. The performances of both girls, cumulated, multiplied by 100, they never, ever, never ever, are any close to the magnificent performance of Emanuelle Riva in Amour... So , Nanni Moretti, I don't really know what came to your mind when you gave that award to these two, frustrating the beautiful Riva of that super-deserved award

The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)

some things repeat obsessively in this series

[6/10 · 30 October 2010]

Well, in the beginning it was an exciting thing, but after some scenes, in both films(the first one and this one)one thing in particular seems (to say the least) forced... It is about the characters, the men who abuse women. It seems like every important, physically big,good looking, middle aged Swedish guy in Sweden is a sadistic raper, a scum... Policemen, attorneys, judges, that look in every way respectable, people that own houses by the lakes, luxury apartments, seem to me that they couldn't get laid in Sweden unless they rape, pay , trick , and make something horrible to a little and defenseless girl. But don't worry, this will all be solved by a little girl, whose tiny dimensions are emphasized throughout the film, a little girl that beats and torture big men, uses high voltage defense gadgets and so on, a tiny girl who made a human torch out of a innocent man when she was young just to take revenge for her abusive father and whom we are supposed to sympathize,etc... It seems very clear to me that, in fact, this is not a series about men who hate woman, but clearly about a woman and a man(the author) who hates men...

Antichrist (2009)

Von Trier , a master of cinema

[10/10 · 17 March 2010]

Lars Von Trier made the most technically stunning film ever. This director has the most extensive knowledge of the European classical art, painting in special, but also music, sculpture and architecture. Such complex and intricate are the cultural quotes of every shot that you have to ignore the plot altogether.I wasn't interested in the plot, what the couple did there was of secondary importance. The MAIN thing was the stunning composition of the shots,it was like the biggest treat in a museum of art. The SURPRISE factor was essential, what is going to appear under each leaf, under the dust or in a corner of the room. Von Trier proved himself a great storyteller in Breaking the waves, Dancer in the dark, etc. He didn't have to prove anything in regard of storytelling here. He just WANTED to make a demonstration of visual art and he did it masterfully. A full 10. For the dedication to Tarkovsky also.

The Ascent (1977)

The Russians made the BEST war movies. Period

[10/10 · 22 February 2010]

If you have a chance, see this Russian(how should I call them: gems, masterpieces,hidden treasures?), war movies like this one, or The dawns here are quiet, or Proverka na dorogah... And , right after that, watch again the American war movies, or the international productions, those one with the allies and the Germans,etc. Or, even worse, watch the Italian war movies. Everything from the west will seem shallow, contrived, ridiculous, in comparison with the Russian movies. I am sooooo stunned by the quality of the aforementioned Russian war movies that I cannot find the words to praise enough their shattering superiority over Anglo-Saxon war movies.

The Thief (1997)

Scarce, sorry to say

[6/10 · 9 February 2010]

Lacks depth, from the first scene, in the train, I felt that I was cheated by a bad art direction ,I didn't feel at all that I was in the fifties. The movie lacks dynamism, the scenes are badly acted by the actors in the second and third plan. Much, much inferior to, let's say , A driver for Vera,to stick with the same director, and million miles away from the masterpiece "The meeting place cannot be changed", with Vladimir Vysotsky, also set in the fifties, not to mention the wonderful "My friend Ivan Lapshin",a period piece also , but much more compelling. I wanted to love this, I was ready to immerse myself in the atmosphere of the fifties,which I love, but it wasn't meant to be

The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (1979)

Magnificent, superb, pitch perfect

[10/10 · 8 February 2010]

When I was a kid and we were playing hide and seek on the street, one of us would rush around eight o clock and find out what movie plays on TV. If he or she came out and shout "Russian movie!", we were making like a "bleah..." and continue play until dark. If a movie with John Wayne or an American movie of any sort was playing we all rushed into our homes to watch it.

Now, after thirty years or more, I rediscover part of this Russian movies, some of them magnificent, which Romanian TV was broadcasting , and I have to, I feel the need to make justice to them, even in this small way, writing a review on IMDb.

And, to be honest, when I watch right now, let's say "High noon" or a western, I am not impressed at all. But this happens with time, you become wiser and justice and true value surface eventually in your life. Dear friends, this is the single most perfect TV series about criminal police in history, and I don't need to say more. It seems written by a great Russian novelist, and I said it all.

Moy drug Ivan Lapshin (1985)

Magnificent

[10/10 · 2 February 2010]

I just heard about German, I mean I knew something about his Krustaliov but I couldn't find it. Now, reading all this reviews about him, little in number but strong in appreciations as they are, I wanted to see his Ivan Lapshin. I just managed to see it with good quality, English subtitles on Youtube. I was amazed, German is in a league of his own, like Bela Tarr but more enjoyable. No wonder he made only six or something movies in his entire career. If all the other movies of him are of the same quality as this one I can understand the effort that he puts in such works of art. His long takes are so much better than,let's say, those artificial ones of Angelopoulos. He is so much more modest than a lot of filmmakers who wonder around at festivals hunting an award or two. He is pristine, alive, every shot of this movie contains something magical. Bravo!

Voditel dlya Very (2004)

Beautiful! Very good, worth seeing it

[10/10 · 1 February 2010]

One of the best Russian movies of the new era, it has nothing to envy to any American thriller. Good reconstruction of the times,early 60's, which is not an easy thing, viewing that in many American period movies there is a perfect reconstruction of the set, scenery, furniture, interiors,clothes, but the actors often fail to reproduce the speech, the gesture, the attitude of the times. Also a romantic story perfectly told, paced, credible, with to people you can figure out being together and falling in love, again differently from the Anglo-Saxon movies, where I find it difficult to understand the chemistry, physical and emotional , between two people romantically involved. Worth the money and time, not a masterpiece but a very close one to that name.

Night Train (1959)

A masterpiece of universal cinema, flawless, magnificent

[10/10 · 27 December 2009]

This is a film which is a privilege to watch, I don't understand why Criterion collection doesn't have this issued yet. If you didn't watch it make yourself one of the biggest favors and watch it right away. I won't describe the movie, I won't spoil your pleasure. This is not a great movie in the sense that other great movies from the same period are considered masterpieces by critics but when we come to watch them they impress us very little. This is a treat, a delight, a thrill, by any modern standards, you have just to find some good subtitles not the lousy ones available on the web and translated online word by word by translation websites. I myself have watched the movie with this kind of subtitles and still I managed to be impressed to tears by this gem. A big bravo to Jerzy Kawalerowicz!

The White Ribbon (2009)

I don't honestly think it was about the roots of evil

[10/10 · 20 December 2009]

The evil was well established in the movie, from long time ago, from the glory of the Holly Roman Empire in Germany, from the height of the bourgeoisie in the Habsburg Empire.The core,the inner, enormous value of this piece is not about that. The movie is a fantastic inventory of objects and faces, an anthropological exposition of the German features, a live museum,a magnificent docudrama... The texture of the whole environment, the details of the set are altogether a masterpiece of film directing . Given this fantastic set we are set to immerse ourselves in every moral nuance of the story, of every common and flat sentence given by the voice over. I enjoyed every second, every frame of this gem, with a thirst hard to describe. When it was over I wanted to last three more hours. I had the (bad?)luck to watch(or try) the enormously overrated Romanian''Police,adj' after this and it didn't but make this one more majestic and strong. Haeneke is the master philosopher of the 21 century of cinema, he looks at the main issues of history and ethics with the authority of a Dostoievsky, Wittgenstein, Rene Girard.What he has to say is to be listened and learned with the greatest love and devotion

Police, Adjective (2009)

I will tell you what this movie is all about

[1/10 · 11 December 2009]

This movie is about Porumboiu's pride and thirst for awards. The guy had absolutely no idea of a new screenplay after the highly successful East of Bucharest... He was just expected to deliver a new movie for Cannes, viewing that Mungiu outclassed them all (the Romanians,among whom there is a dissimulated competition ) a year before, with 432. So the guy, who is not stupid at all, had to deliver something, but he had no idea of a subject whatsoever. So he came with a small subject, a moral issue, totally unrealistic(because it is Porumboiu's moral issue not of a real Romanian officer, there are NO Romanian police officers like the main character), and he thought that, like Mungiu in 432, he can develop a long feature film from a short feature subject. But he was wrong , totally wrong,he may trick some critics who seem right now to have an orgasm of pleasure at any Romanian stupid so called new wave movie(the Variety and New York Times critics are the most exponential)but he won't trick the thousands and thousands of decent film lovers and connoisseurs who are going to watch this total crap of self sufficient and narcissistic excuse of a movie...

Gomorrah (2008)

A movie of an "animalic" beauty

[10/10 · 11 December 2008]

Gomorra, after all, can be described as other reviewers or critics did it, like a masterpiece of realism, one of the best mafia movies, etc...But I don't think that for this reason won all the top prizes at the EFA, or is considered favorite for the Oscars(i think will lose, eventually, to another movie).

I think Gomorra has a kind of "animalic" beauty within itself, like a dangerous tiger walking on the streets of a big city, leaving everybody in awe and terror. It digs out so deeply in our most disturbed obsessions with violence, social domination, sadism,cruelty, that it becomes somehow familiar with our own greatest fears.

We do like the two boys rummaging through the outskirts of that hellish world, stealing weapons and using it, but we do also like when they are punished by more powerful monsters. It's like watching an Animal Planet documentary, about prey and predators, it's like we escaped all the rules of our civilized society and we are playing, like the kids themselves, in that "superbly" dangerous area.

Nobody in this movie is sitting at the table to eat, nobody is sleeping in a bedroom, nobody is caressing anybody, the social rules of conventional love and affection are blown away, but we are still in a very palpable city, in flesh and bones, it's a world next to us, not a fantasy world created by the author. So this offers to the movie a kind of philosophical substance residing in it's own biological texture(like the meaning or non meaning of life itself), not in it's poetical structure.

Conclusion : this is a great, great movie...

Late Marriage (2001)

Well, you can go wrong with the critics opinions...Filthy piece of work...

[1/10 · 25 April 2008]

So ugly was this movie that I really don't know what to start with. It seems to me that I have such different esthetically taste and ethical values to half of the Planet Earth... Do people like this exist? Do you really meet them on the streets, in the cafés, in the markets in Israel? Do they form the vast majority of the city of Tel Aviv? I don't know which critic(one that I really appreciated) defined this film "splendid"... There's nothing splendid about this film, not one frame, not one second..Everything is plain ugly. No, not ugly, repulsive, obnoxious. And the sex scene...Oh, oh, oh... Is defined realistic... I would call completely tasteless, useless(and I am not a shy type, I loved the sex scenes in Lust,caution, for example)

The Taste of Others (2000)

What a gem, so much better than the American romantic comedies....

[10/10 · 22 April 2008]

That may sound so stupidly common, but life is great to watch, life itself, real life, is the greatest show on earth...Not the fantasy, not science fiction, not any form of imagined world, but life just as it is. To make good films, good literature, good fiction, you have to, just like Agnes Jaoui does, observe, select, edit, put on paper and finally on screen small scenes of everyday life.And the result and the final meaning of this is that we are all humans, weak, filled with doubts, longings, ego. Life is miserable but beautiful also. There is a shortage of everything, starting with love and communication, money, power. We , with few exceptions, the great majority of us walking on the streets, filling in the markets, the sideways, sitting on our couches home, in our beds , we are the subject of this great, enormous movie.

Oci ciornie (1987)

Simply, the most beautiful looking picture of modern times

[10/10 · 17 April 2008]

There's no really much you can say and analyze about this movie. It's not a movie by itself, it's a piece of art lost in the ocean of mundane cinema of the 20-th century. It's like the great literature, the great paintings of history, impregnated with a mystical and hard to define quality in it's texture. For me this is not simply a "movie", i say it again. Like Nostalghia or Andrei Rubliov of Tarkovsky , here the poetics transcends what we usually call cinema, or a film, because it gets a life on it's own, and becomes independent to critical observation. It's like a tiger in the Siberian forest, that you have to simply admire. A tiger is beautiful because it's a tiger, Oci Ciornie it's beautiful because it is Oci Ciornie. Something divine happened to Mihalkov and to the cast when thy made this piece of art. It was the greatest shame and scandal when the jury at Cannes awarded "Sous le Ciel de Satan" the Palme D'or, but who cares...Time is for the art what is for the wine. The good one gets better, the cheap one gets sour and becomes vinegar.

The Edge of Heaven (2007)

Beautiful, great , would have deserved Palme d'or

[10/10 · 17 April 2008]

I don't really want to be polemic right now, because this movie invaded me with such a elevated state of spirit and emotions that I just want to say good things. But I cannot help myself and assert openly that this film was much more compelling, emotionally charging, smart, vast, wide and deep , than the winner at the Cannes Film Festival, 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days. Faith Akin, whom first much lauded feature Gegen Die Wand I didn't like at all(i found it intoxicatingly loud, shaky and in a way polluted) has just hit the jackpot with this gem of a movie. Of course not the jackpot for money but for artistic value. Just go and see this movie, it's gonna be worth every second you spend in front of the screen. It will make you cry (and laugh sometimes), but it will elevate your state of mind and melt the tension within yourself.

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

One of the greatest movies of all time. Period

[10/10 · 17 April 2008]

Nothing more to say. Because saying more is spoiling the fantastic delicate texture of this piece of art, of poetry, that stays at the same level with the great poetic cinema of all time. Let's say, nevertheless( because IMDb doesn't allow comments with less than 10 lines), that the beauty of the movie is so great, so relaxing and enriching is visualizing all this gorgeous cinematography that it will make your day. Watch this if you are stressed out, if you have a skin rush, if you feel uneasy. This movie, along with Spring, summer...(Kim Ki Duk) is one of the few movies with therapeutic effect that I know. Iran is such a great country, such a great culture and past they have...A big Bravo!

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)

Fantastic, modern cinema doesn't get any better than this

[10/10 · 17 April 2008]

I really don't know what to emphasize first when it comes to this movie...So great is this piece at so many different levels that is really hard to express everything in a short review. The realism of the movie is first class. You feel like being there, with the characters, you feel being in Paris, you feel Tom's fingers, the piano, you feel like the Vietnamese teacher stays right next to you. Philosophy : great, just great. Buddhist, Christian, every great religion and philosophy is right here, concealed in the texture of the movie. The alternations of yin and yang, the accumulation of greed, lust, the negative and the positive payoff, the finding of the happiness through suffering, the redemption, every fundamental concept of life is right here. Acting...Well, what can I say? Just scream out loud :HOW COULD THEY NOT GIVE CESAR TO ROMAIN DURIS?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How good can be OTHER performance to surpass this one?! This is one of the great performances of European cinema of all time. The guy is bursting with energy, uneasiness, relentlessness, tension, every frame in which he appears gives you the feeling that you are about to get crazy along with him. And Linh Dan Pham? She is just gorgeous. I fell in love with every little movement of her, it has been one of the VERY FEW times that I was satisfied with the love "who stays with who" outcome of one movie(usually i hate the romantic outcomes of the movies)...So, what can I say...If you didn't see this movie yet, just go and rent it.

Close to Eden (1991)

One of the best movies of the 90's

[10/10 · 11 April 2008]

What Mikhalkov and his actors did here is unbelievable. I mean, let aside the immense value of this film, I keep wondering how did they do that? How the hack came such an idea to them, to make such a...how should I say, different, crazy, enormous movie ? How did they make those kids play such terrific performances?! Not one of them, but three...You will say that they weren't really uneducated kids from the steppes but educated kids with school that were just acting. Yeah, but how the hell can a kid from the city slip under the skin of a character that lives his entire life in the steppe?! And the performance of Vladimir Gostyukin is nothing less than BRILLIANT. Stands on the same level with the great performances of the great American and British actors, I mean Hanks, Hackman, Hopkins, etc. Oh, it was so easy to screw it up, this movie. A good straight old American movie with this theme would have been like this : the guys are living in the steppe, poetry, here comes the Russian, communication, friendship, then the balance is disturbed, violence come, outside forces that try to ruin the life of the characters, the characters fight, win, the Russian leaves, they say goodbye, they cry, last shot, the Russian appears at the horizon to see them again. Nothing like that in this movie. It is SOOO smart!!!!! Bravo for the Golden Lion, perfectly deserved!

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)

Good but not so great as the awards may suggest

[7/10 · 6 January 2008]

OK, the great debate over this movie I don't think that should be about whether it is a good movie or not, because it is. A very good movie, indeed. Still, the number of awards, and the hype surrounding the awards received, the quality of the films that this movie has beaten in the competitions make this movie seem like a gigantic movie, a very great one, an all timer, which is NOT. It is a very well spoken movie, a very tensed dialog, a pleasure of hearing, more likely a very good play on stage. It is a gossip made by two very smart women at the corner of the street, a perfect mimesis. But in the same time it is a movie that creates very little emotion, very little sympathy for any of the characters, very little adversity for the villain. Speaking about Palme D'or we shouldn't take that in great consideration. Look what happened in recent years. 2006 - "El laberinto del fauno"(MAG-NI-FI-CENT) got no awards at all, Babel and Volver were beaten by a movie nobody is speaking about anymore, anywhere, "The wind that shakes the barley". In another year , the magnificent, miraculous " All about my mother" got beaten by...guess?...i'm waiting...oh..."Rosseta"...Did you hear about that? Did anyone see this movie? In 1980 the wonderful 'Oci ciornie" got beaten by...OK, you'll never guess...Is a french movie, "Sous le ciel de Satan", nobody is speaking about anymore... In 2007 "No country for old men" took no award in Cannes, although everybody was praising it, and now has a very high rating on rottentomatoes. I wait to see " The diving bell and the butterfly" but I don't know why I have a feeling that I will like it more than 432... I don't know why, maybe is the trailer, the reviews...Maybe this will be thought also by the Academy voters for best foreign language movie...

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

The greatest romantic comedy of ALL TIMES

[10/10 · 24 December 2002]

I really cannot understand why this magnificent movie draws such horrific comments from some people. It just strenghtens my opinion that the cultural level in the western world it's too low nowadays... As for me, this movie is MY NUMBER ONE MOVIE OF ALL TIMES, but this is only a my subjective point of view. Anyway , I'm not exactly a newcomer in this art, viewing that I'm studying movie directing at the Media University in Bucharest. Back to the movie, it is really difficult to begin with something, so numerous are the qualities of this movie. It is simply THE GREATEST SCREENPLAY of all times, with countless gems, witty lines, twists (it is NOT PREDICTABLE OF ALL!), a really luminous down ending(which is a very rare thing). EVERYBODY, BUT I MEAN EVERYBODY, has something "to eat" in this movie!...No character is here by chance, from the kid John Webster to Will Shakespeare, the appearance of every character has some meaning. And the development of the plot, reallly of Shakespearean quality, is interweaved magnificently with Romeo and Juliet, the play wich we rediscover in this movie('cause too often we think we've seen all and we know everything about Shakespeare's plays but really we DON'T). It takes a genius of the dimensions of Tom Stoppard(let's not forget Marc Norman) to make this kind of devilishly clever script. The Academy made, in that year, maybe one of it's smartest choices(alongside of the year when they gave the Oscar to Ordinary people). Saving private Ryan seemed to have all the upper hand there. It was very "american", with a patriotic message, spectacularly directed, and it was representing a very ambitious to win Steven Spielberg, who is, probably , the most powerful man in film industry right now. But no, the Academy voters were not stupid. They KNEW, they understood very well that Ryan has virtually no plot, it is a heavy handed, "mechanical" , predictable plot, with a cheesy patriotic ending. On the other hand , Shakespeare in love had all the odds against it. Released in december, it was representing nobody(except for Bob Weistein, the Miramax boss). John Madden was a nobody, Tom Stoppard was not very well known in America, Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow were not very known and beloved in America(compared to Tom Hanks), it was a British period piece...Some would have said "Come on, you really expect this to win over Saving private Ryan?!" But it did...Deservedly... Shakespeare in love has definitely the greatest original score of all times. I really cannot praise enough how great the music composed by Stephen Warbeck for this movie is.The last twenty minutes in the movie are really one of the greatest moments of cinemamaking in history, and the final shot is THE GREATEST SINGLE FINAL SHOT OF ALL TIMES... So, don't listen to the opinions of some uneducated guy, listen to somebody that KNOWS. Go and rent this movie, have a little patience at the beginning, 'cause after that, you will want to see it over and over again...