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laurascheri
Reviews
100 Degrees Below Zero (2013)
Simply the worst
DO THEY THINK WE ARE TOTAL IDIOTS????
This is the only thing that comes to my mind.
Not only the script is embarrassing and the special effects are practically non-existing...
Soon into the film you realize they are in Budapest, not in Paris as they keep saying: you can clearly see not only the 2 major churches (Buda's and Pest's), but even THE PARLIAMENT ALONG THE DANUBE!!!!
Not to say of the Hungarian car plates everywhere, even on the small pathetic red FIAT car they get IN THE UK. That one, though, magically has a different plate once they have passed the Euro Tunnel...
Shall I write about the girl in short sleeves all through the film, with temperatures supposing to drop well below zero? Or about the "fur shop" selling horribly fake furs?
It wasn't even funny.
La migliore offerta (2013)
A poor imitation of Hitchcock's
Mr Tornatore must think that moviegoers are simpletons.
Not only does he show us in too many details that the main character is a deranged person (without telling us why); but he also lets us understand from the very first minutes what future developments we are to expect.
The idea of FAKE and IMITATION is so often introduced (fake paintings, fake puppets -the automaton-, fake auction bids) that it is simply impossible not to guess the truth.
As the story is apparently meant to have a final surprising twist, well then the movie is a failure.
I was bored after 20 minutes.
The plot is repetitive, the script is embarrassing, the score is just one more Hitchcock-based imitation.
Mr Rush is a great actor, but his presence on the screen during the whole story is not enough to save a poorly-written, bad movie.
Prometheus (2012)
Copy/paste
Had I not seen all of the Alien saga, I might have liked this film.
Even though the script is leaking in a thousand ways, some images are beautiful indeed. Fassbender is not bad in his role of a solitary, movie-lover robot.
But then again, I HAVE seen Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. There was nothing more to say.
Every single moment of the film, except maybe the first few minutes, reminds me of something I already know.
A robot that looks like a human? Ian Holm was much better.
Giger's nightmarish architectures? Seen, seen, seen. Looks like the very same models have been used.
A monster lurking inside an emergency pod? Nothing new. This time, unfortunately, there is no Ripley.
A robot's head? Even the colour of the liquid oozing from its mouth - white- is the same as in Alien.
Please, Ridley, could you give me something I have not seen yet? Apparently you can't.
Nothing new under the sun.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
A good film from a difficult novel
This might not be Fincher's best film. "Fight Club" and "Se7en" are masterpieces, and masterpieces are rare. However, there are various reasons why I like this film.
Compared with the recent Swedish version, the story is tenser, the rhythm less slow, the characters better casted. Craig gives us a much more convincing interpretation of the role of Blomquist. Mara is as good as Rapace was. The sub-plot relating to the strictly journalistic aspect of the story has been given less accent, and that contributes to concentrating our attention on the main plot.
As for the rendering of the novel, all adult readers and movie-goers know better that great directors give their own gist to stories. Sometimes directors change radically stories which are good as novels, turning them into very good films. Think about what Ridley Scott did from Dick's "electric sheep"...
Mature audiences do not expect the director to transfer all the details of a book into a film. Maybe young kids are disappointed if they do not see all the characters and situations they have read in a book exactly turned into a film. This is why, for example, 2 films had to be made from the latest Harry Potter novel. Adults appreciate synthesis, immature audiences want analysis.
What I liked most is Fincher's unmistakable touch. Of course, if you don't like Se7en or Fight Club you will shudder at some scenes which are indeed violent. Violence, however, is necessary to the plot, and only a great director like Fincher can describe the depths of a perverse mind.
Magnifica presenza (2012)
This is not Almodòvar
Even though some ideas can be appreciated, nothing is really new. A haunted house? Victims of Nazi racism? A difficult life for a gay young man? Mobbing in a solicitor's office? A thousand films have dealt with this in a more profound way.
Adding a cameo with Platinette as a sort of a metaphysical seer surrounded by transvestites is not enough to turn a quite superficial story into an Almodòvar-style comedy.
If the director wants to go all the way, then let him go all the way. But I have not seen the courage to push the story to its extreme possibilities; Ozpetek is satisfied with giving us a quite ordinary and reassuring fairy-tale with a sort of a happy ending.
Let's just think about all the plot opportunities suggested by a group of people from the 1940s brought into the 2010s...all the director does is letting us know that the young son of the Turkish couple is still alive!
Germano is on the scene from beginning to end, and I must say he is not bad at all. The actors around him, on the contrary, look stereotyped and without a real insight on their character. Definitely not the best I have seen from Ozpetek.
The Hunger Games (2012)
Could have been better
The question is not how faithful to the book the film is. Obviously a lot of episodes and characters have been deleted or altered, but that's not the trouble. The book is one thing, the film is another.
The point is, the authors have chosen a definitely teen-ager approach to the story. "The Hunger Games" by Collins is a beautifully complex book, and it can be read on many different levels by different categories of readers. While youngsters are more attracted by the fight/battle/survival plot, we adults are more likely to be interested in the relationship between TV and violence, oppression and voyeurism, domination and advertising.
Deciding to dedicate much of their attention to the events going on in the fighting arena, the authors of the film have, in my opinion, given way to what is most obvious and spectacular, in a word to what will attract spending-money crowds to the cinema.
Better would have been to emphasize the role of the media, with their sponsors who are willing to pay for a medicine to be sent to Katniss only if she kisses Peeta so the audience will appreciate. Better would have been to point out the "Big Brother" aspect of the story (not only its visual reminders), but apparently that's considered not important. What a pity.
Melancholia (2011)
Simply fascinating
One of the best films I have seen in ages. At first things seem idyllic, a happy wedding, a beautiful bride, a splendid location...but bit by bit we start to feel something is wrong. Problems of communication arise as early as in the limo when the married couple cannot get in touch with the chauffeur. During the wedding party Justine often expresses the need to "talk" to different characters, but she never gets to do it. Her boss is only interested in getting from her a slogan for his advertising campaign; her husband has bought her a piece of land without asking her and is already planning details of their married life; when she finally gets her father to stay the night at the castle so they can talk, all she finds is a note addressing her with a wrong name, the same her father uses for every woman around him. During the first part Justine is caught in the wedding program but she does not comply with it. She disappears for long, having a hot bath or taking a nap while the guests are waiting for her to do what she is supposed to do.She is told by her mother to leave the party, and by her sister to hide her depression and delusions from her husband. One by one male guests leave the party: the sadistic and self-pleased boss, the superficial father, even the husband who cannot understand his wife's deep uneasiness. In the second part, the approaching of the planet proceeds in parallel with Justine's fall into depression and pessimism. Her sister, who tries to organize everybody's life, is the only one who seems to understand Justine and maybe share some of her obsessions. Claire's husband is a rational character, but in the end his faith in science will not help him. Justine, being convinced that life on Earth is just accidental, is not afraid of the approaching planet. The real catastrophe is not in the sky but on Earth. Humankind is wicked. Little by little, with the flight of all men surrounding her, Justine finds she is stronger than her sister. Now it is just the two of them and Claire's little son. Even if Justine knows too well that there is no place to escape (there never has been one), she builds a symbolic shelter where the three of them can wait together for the end. The film is visually enchanting; the imagery of the first few minutes is simply astonishing. As it does not ask to be considered a sci-fi film, it is pointless to look for factual or scientific mistakes, as it would be for another masterpiece like "Solaris".
The Tree of Life (2011)
Who dies? How? And why did I go see this film?
One of the most useless films I have ever seen.
We are told that one of the kids has died even before we get to know the members of the family. The consequence is that we don't give a damn about his death (which of the kids dies, by the way, and how?).
Immediately after that we see a sort of Discovery Channel 45 minutes' documentary. Unfortunately the documentary is also a bad imitation of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". Please, we have had enough of NASA images with classical music soundtrack! When Kubrick did it, it was something new, astounding, full of genius...but now it is simply a copy.
The only interesting part of the story, the one which would have deserved a deeper development, is the relationship between the eldest son and his hideous father. Here a good film could have been made, but the director is simply more interested in dinosaurs or New-Age/Coelho-style pseudo-philosophy.
Just save your money, or spend it on renting a Kubrick "2001" DVD.