adiradathel Reviews

Beerfest (2006)

A US movie about beer

[3 August 2008]

As to be expected from a US movie about beer, this is on par with an Italian sports drama about baseball. Have you ever tasted their beer? See, what should have come out of it? Well, this a disjointed, meaningless mess of "humour" that should even embarrass semi-moron frat boys. BTW, the Irish should have won, with the Germans a close runner up.

At this time, it is voted 6.2!!! Hard to believe. Best voted by female voters under 18. Interesting. Voted 6.6 by US-voters, no surprise here.

Anyway, avoid this like the small pox. Since I have to fill some lines, let me just put on record the embarrassment to see Jürgen Prochnow in... this.

All the Queen's Men (2001)

Quite a surprise

[30 July 2008]

After all the bashing it received elsewhere, I'd like to join the majority here saying this is a vastly underrated flick. It's a WW-II-comedy in "Some-like-it-hot-"drag, tinted by a touch of tragedy.

Though LeBlanc is not that convincing, the self-finding of the young decoder and the love story of Eddie Izzard are deeply emotional and worthwhile throughout. Beautiful Krebitz' character is one of the witty girls often found in war-times Germany, though her banter is toned down in speed to let even Austrians understand the meaning of her lines.

Great cast, good story with only minor plot holes (yes, you should watch it till it's over) and some really funny gags. Good blend of war drama and comedy.

Flicker (I)

Hopefully never to be done

[30 July 2008]

This is one of the few books I hope I will never see on the big screen. The vast pastiche opened before our eyes cannot be rendered adequately within two or even three hours. Any movie adaptation will only result in brutal butchering of one of the most beautiful books about moving images ever conceived. Go READ. Don't wait for the film.

Anybody who compares this to Dan Brown's drivel, by the way, doesn't obviously know what he is talking / writing about. First, Roszak gets his facts right (hello Dan), second Roszak has written a highly original novel and not just used material published before (HELLO DAN) and third Roszak knows how to write engaging prose and gripping dialogue (HELLLLOOOO DAN). In short, Roszak's novel is on par with Umberto Eco's Pendulum and Name of the Rose, while Dan Brown is barking up a tree.

With a sore throat.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Well, yes... Shia the Beef and the tinfoil skull

[9 June 2008]

My expectations were not too high, I'd admit. I was willing to cope with Indy aging, with Shia the Beef etc. pp. All I demanded was a coherent, well paced story without too much CGI. For an Indy-Fan, I think, this was a modest set of expectations. It would be enough to have me cheer all along.

Oh, how they failed on that.

The first half of the film was decent. I ignored the much-maligned gopher and thought the nuclear test sequence quite good. I also ignored, why somebody would bring an archaeologist to examine the Roswell Aliens, as it had happened obviously according to Indy's back story. I ignored a lot. SO I could enjoy the scenes at the college, the milk bar etc. I was in a forgiving mood, and Ford showed the occasional spark. Good enough for me.

Things, however, went rapidly downhill from there. Incoherent story, non stop exposition babble (How often had the ark to be explained?), still the plot was completely disjointed, menacing warriors springing of from nowhere (no idea where they were from), cheap-looking McGuffin, shoddy, shoddy, SHODDY CGI galore, Marion's character butchered etc. pp.

A mess. With an ending, well others described it already. Where was Fox Moulder? As a standard summer flick 6/10, as an Indy installment 3/10. I make it 5/10 all in all, but only because I didn't feel personally offended, as so many here seem to do. Lucas and Spielberg just have lost their touch quite a while ago, but not their greed.

Léon: The Professional (1994)

Too complex for some minds

[21 April 2008]

What I like most about this movie is that some commentators from the States rate it with only one star (obviously disturbed by the complex relationship between Mathilde and Leon) and having a 10-star-rating for the Powerpuff girls in their voting history.

Anyway, Leon is a powerful neo noir refined by European taste and spiced up with elements bordering on the supernatural when it comes to Leon's kills. It is one of Besson's good films which he happens to make once in a blue moon. Great script with well-developed characters. Reno and Portmann are perfectly matched and have great chemistry, Oldmann is his usual strange self.

All-in-all it shows, what Cassavetes should have done with his material in 1980...

My Führer (2007)

Poor Helge

[13 January 2007]

Surprisingly, a lot of controversy has started around it in Germany. Many Jewish NGOs and notable persons like Marcel Reich-Ranicki criticize this movie, saying that making a Hitler-Satire offends the memory of all those lives murdered in WWII. They say, this movie ridicules Hitler's evil and therefore makes him human (Err, what else was he? Elephant?) PC-drivel. I couldn't care less.

The problem with this comedy is, it is not funny. Levy was obviously concerned about exactly these reactions and therefore included a morality play about Gruenbaum's attitude and difficulties. This in itself is a bad idea, but it sinks this wreck of a movie even faster by being overemphasized with no end.

To make a biting satire about Hitler, you have to go all the way like "To be or not to Be" did. If you're not the man to do it, don't try.

Awful, boring, not funny, hypocritical, totally irrelevant and definitely not recommended. I am not a friend of Helge's surreal antics, but he didn't deserve to sink in this tripe.

Breaking Dawn (2004)

A pleasant surprise

[3 January 2007]

Whenever I see comments here along the lines "the movie is crap, but at least so-and-so was a hot chick / guy", whenever this happens I know: a certain kind of people doesn't like it, and that is exactly the kind of people I want to dislike "my" movies.

So this one has a decent script and the end is NOT disappointing - it is, indeed, a not quite so fresh twist, but it was far more plausible than anything M. Night Shyamalan has dreamt up so far, and that DOES include the highly overrated "Sixth Sense".

On the other hand: the ending, though presenting a good conclusion for the plot, is overly optimistic and feel-good that it gets cheesy (1 star reduced for that fact alone).

But the 85 or so minutes up front work remarkably well, and script and directing give the viewer a more than fair chance to deduce the final twist well in advance. Besides that, the acting is decent, the low budget doesn't show at all and the whole thing is very aptly written and directed. When I learned how young the writer / director is, and that this was his first film, I was truly impressed.

I hope to see more of his work.

P.S: Kelly Overton acted well, but she really isn't that hot. Sorry.

Eragon (2006)

Faithful Adaption

[19 December 2006]

This is a very faithful adaption which even surpasses the source material. A scrambling though lacking movie made out of a thing some people might call a "book" or even a "fantasy novel". Others won't. I have read the first 50 pages and went away to club my rolled-up toenails down. When I returned, "Eragon", the "novel" has dissolved into something animals leave behind on the pavement.

The movie. Decent acting. I think Irons was very good here, a restraint performance. He even managed the most atrocious chunks of expository dialogue with the ironic dignity of the seasoned thespian. The boy-turning-hero was the black hole I'd expected acing-wise, but he resembles a good friend of mine and has a decent voice, so it was bearable.

The elven maiden was great. NO ULTRASONIC / RADAR POINTY EARS. It's fair, since Tolkien didn't mention pointy ears in HIS novel and they were glued all over those people in the movies. Paolini mentions them (that much I took from the fan girl boards, can't remember) and his elven maiden comes without. Great. You know what? You could tell she is elven by her graceful style and movements. Sorry, easy on the eyes and very graceful, THAT is elven. NOT pointy ears. What are they supposed to do with them anyway - get pickles from the jar?

Decent FX, sets and props. Not much to say. Fairly well done dragon, other parts looked mushy to me. The Urgals reminded me of the "Crimson Guard" of the Dungeons & Dragons movie. Plot was predictable but at least didn't drag along, dialogue was somewhere between adequate and truly awful (where taken from the book, I presume).

What the movie (as well as the novel) is lacking, is a soul. Perhaps a 15year old doesn't have the possibility to insert soul into his writing, and the movie tried to cash in and didn't bother to develop that shiny centre of good story-telling.

All in all, recommended for fantasy buffs like myself (try to get matinée). I would rate it 3 stars, but it gets five, since director Fangmeyer was able to throw the whole fan girl community into fits reminiscent of Profion from the D&D-Movie. Which of course, was far better, since it showed everywhere that Ed-Wood-attitude of true love for the artist's child, regardless of its deformities, and at least the director didn't see it as a cash-cow.

Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Coming Cult Classic for Gamers

[29 November 2006]

All this is a personal view, so don't spew, don't sputter.

I actually *love* that movie, not because it is good, but entirely for its camp value. It is pure D&D, at least as far as I know it from 25 yrs of game mastering, a truly deep delve in the world of gaming. That so many people despise, nay, hate it with all their heart's content (look at the board) shows, how close it hit home in that regard.

Some high points and how they relate to gaming.

1) Irons chewing up the scenes. He has a better voice than I do, but apart from that I do the same thing at my game table when representing the villain. Alternatively I do the menacing silent guy.

2) Payne slow moving 'n stuff. "You must be joking." He actually quotes me. In my games, when the group doesn't realize their foe is way over their head, I let him move slowly and utter lines like that. (Not that it would help much, stupid players)

3) Death of Snails; well, when a character (not the player!) has done enough to seriously p*ss me or the rest of the group off, he is bound to meet his end (always with fair means and a chance to escape). And who p*ssed the audience more off than Snails? I remember the cheers in the theatre. (And yet it was touching in a weird way). Snails also is a persona frequently found at gaming tables - the wisecracking dumb*beep* who is spoiling the fun with his "witty" and "funny" remarks. Death to him I say. (Representing a player and a PC? Uh-uh, multilayered reality ;) )

4) Plot. Cheesy world saving quest with dungeon hopping and a quick dash into the elven woods for some R&R and a lot of Behind-the-scenes wisdom. What gamemaster of our (the first) generation never has used that plot line or at least considered using it? (The plot revealed in the deleted scenes on DVD actually works very well within the limited scope of a game world.)

5) General acting skills. Despite the fact that solid to good actors are doing strange things here - can you remember how your high school buddies "roleplayed" (i.e. acted) their characters at the gaming table? How did that look like? Ring a bell? I could go on for a quite a while.

6) The dwarf too tall, mage not using spell components properly - hey, currently my tallest player is having a halfling character, and complicated spell-casting rules tend to get muddy in the thick of things. That's the way of these worlds, isn't it. You need a dwarf (and an elf) in the group to save the world, don't you know? Well, latest player to join gets one of them, regardless of height....

Solomon did not bring us a movie in the D&D universe. He also did us not explain the actual game mechanics. He created a movie immersing us in the D&D experience. That's something different, and he "like so totally" delivered. D&D (IMHO) is cheesy, campy, over the top and (from a narrative point of view) quite often very bad, all this adding up to several trainloads of fun. Naturally this does not refer to people having adopted D&D 3.X, which tends to take itself too serious and causes the most boring gaming tables (apart from Shadowrun) at cons.

All in all I nearly laughed my head off. Irons was completely unchecked by anyone on the set and so much fun! I think he tried to get back at his director, but in the end, he makes this movie an outstanding piece of camp. Will be a cult classic in 10 to 15 yrs.

Just my 2 cents. If you hate it, feel free to do so. I guess you have reasons. For all the others - make a double feature of Dungeons & Dragons and The Gamers and a lot of beer, it is surreal. It rocks! You may throw in the "Ring Thing" just for good measure (more beer and a fondue).

Oh, and avoid the sequel to Dungens & Dragons - it is supposed to be taken serious but is just a neutered piece of C-picture.

P.S.: Just rewatched it and put it from 6 to 7. It is great after a couple of beers.

Asoka (2001)

What on earth?

[16 November 2006]

600 horses, 50 elephants, 6,000 extras together on the battlefield, as another reviewer wrote, and they are not able to put together a decent battle scene. That is something of an achievement. The After-the-battle-scenes on the field were gritty and intense, but the actual battle was lousily edited and suffered from a ridiculous pseudo martial arts style in plastic-lookalike pieces of armor.

The acting was terrible, even the extras hammed it up. Only redemption here was the Khalinga-General. I also have to admit that the evil Asoka was well done by Shahrukh Khan who otherwise either left a noticeable amount of slime on the screen when not totally overacting.

The story was good but butchered, the dialogue awful, character development believable where the actors didn't strangle their characters to death, and set pieces worth millions were simply put to waste. I am sorry for that.

It was my first Bollywood experience. Some call this to be a finest among Bollywood Movies. If this is the case, I better skip the rest of the bunch. Horrible.