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I’m starting to see an emerging pattern here. You see, I liked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a lot, but other people hated it. And, now I like Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince a lot – and yes! There is a lot of hate once more. Why the hate, people, why the hate? This movie does the thing a penultimate movie ought to do, and it’s the one movie to stay – in my opinion – closest to the book in style and substance (and if it does stray, I think it’s justified).

Lookit the pretty pictures!

Let me say this first: for me, this is without a doubt the prettiest Harry Potter movie to date. Yes, I consider it to be even prettier than the much lauded Prisoner of Azkaban. Yes, that movie was the best and it was the greatest and so on, but in all fairness it did notlook as good as this one. Obviously, this one builds rather heavily on Azkaban in art style – moreso than the two previous ones. There are some shots in here that are almost art.

Oh, but dear writer, we know you know nothing of art! Well, you’ve got me there. But when I looked at certain shots, I saw a fan of surrealism – of Magritte. Most of these shots revolved around Draco Malfoy – more on him later – or his immediate surroundings. His black suit, the houses his mother was running through on her way to a certain someone, the vanishing cabinet… they all looked nightmarish and absurd. And unbelievably pretty. It gives me hope that David Yates could actually save the last book. But then I remember a thing called “wand lore”.

And it has to be said: Nicholas Hooper did a great job composing the music for this film. It fits the mood perfectly. Some other movies had great soundtracks as well (I’m thinking Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire), but this one was a lot better than all the others. It has something magical – just like the movie has something magical, something indescribable that the other movies don’t have. The magic feels more… fresh and new – but ancient at the same time. As if it were a character on its own, symbolized into Dumbledore (this you can see clearly in the first scene, when he appears in front of “Magic” billboard).

Snogging! Snogging!

I remember watching “The Life Aquatic” a while ago and feeling like a little boy watching National Geographic again. The Half Blood Prince made me feel like I was 16 again and in the prime of my hormonal youth. For me, this movie re
ected the book perfectly – I remember feeling like that as well when reading it. Lads and lasses, you have to admit one thing: these books are littered with useless but funny little tidbits. If you’re complaining nothing’s happening, then you haven’t read this book right. It is a book about snogging. It’s one of the things Rowling used to mask the fact that the end is highly dramatic. Don’t blame the movie for staying close to the book.

That’s what this movie does: it stays very, very close but looks for artistic freedom elsewhere (design, composition…). There is – as far as I can remember – only one scene that is truly added, and it occurs near Christmas day at the Weasly’s house. I thought it was pretty. And it’s obvious they want to give the wonderful, wonderful actress Helena Bonham-Carter a bit more screentime. She is one of the only stars that is left in this series who is not either in diapers or wrinkled and old.

Speaking of stars: the indeniable acting hero in this movie is Tom Felton, playing Draco Malfoy.
It’s like the story gave him a little more leeway and he shoved everything he could into that. He plays the tormented killer role wonderfully: he’s jumpy, eager, anxious and also a frightened little boy. In the final battle, I couldn’t help feeling more pity for him than the actual victim. It sets up the final book perfectly, and I can’t wait to see Felton playing what’s still in store for his character. But by that time I’ll probably be too busy cheering Neville on.

The person I was slightly disappointed in was Snape. Alan Rickman was great – as per usual, as per usual – but he’s gotten way too little screentime. I have no problem with the added scenes, but Bonham-Carter’s additions might have been better used as Snape time. It was as if the first half of the movie was trying so hard to set him up as a vilain and the second movie the exact opposite. That just didn’t work for me. I guess they’re trying to form a bridge, some sort of an actor generation pact thing: the older actors are passing the torch on to the new ones. Quite a burden to bear – these movies have showcased some of Britain’s most gifted actors.

In All…

This movie nails it. It’s the part in the series that’s come closest to the feeling of the book. The humour makes you laugh out loud, the drama makes you fight the tears. At times, it shocks you; at times, it warms your heart. Just like the book, really. But it triomphs in one place the book fails: execution. Rowling might have designed great characters and a truly magical story, she’s simply not the best writer out there. Why should eyes always be raven black? This is where The half-blood Prince succeeds: it’s a truly stunning visual feast. And I don’t mean the special effects. Although those are obviously nice too. Hum.

It just goes to show what poor initial reviews from the test audience can do to a movie: six months more development, and there you have a well-polished piece of art. If only this were standard…

Favourite Quote:
Hermione: Hey, she’s only interested in you because she thinks you’re the Chosen One.
Harry: But I am the Chosen One!

Let me tell you this first: I loved Les Choristes. I own it on DVD and now and again I pop it into my DVD player. It’s the subtle mixture of characters and storyline with music that gets it: if the characters don’t cut to your bone right at the start of the movie, then they will do when they start singing. It’s one of the reasons I wanted music to have a dominant role in Vlaams Filmpje – and lo and behold: it worked. People like singers.

So picture my amazement when I walked past the DVD store and found this: a movie named Faubourg 36, of which I had not heard before. But with names so well-known to me that you could well say that it’s a sequel to Les Choristes, set in the past (If you haven’t seen this movie, you best forget that sentence unless you want to confuse yourself throughout).

Like cotton candy

The premise of Faubourg 36 is pretty simple: after a desastrous maffia-filled New Years Eve of 1935, three members of the variety theatre “Chansonia” try to save their second home by reopening it on their own account. Somewhere in there are three love stories (two of them in a triangle), educational themes, socialism… It’s a pretty full movie, which sometimes feels a bit all over the surface and scared to go into the deep, but manages to bring every story to a conclusive and satisfying end.

It’s not the story that sucks you in, though – it’s the world. The production team apparently recreated the entire Faubourg area in an abandoned field somewhere around Prague – and did so wonderfully: the movie world is so undeniably credible that it sucks you in from the moment the camera pans over the “CHANSONIA” letters, dismounts and follows Pigoil inside (a shot that lasted about three minutes and was a true work of art). It feels like its predecessor (an isolated world that lives next to a bigger one, with the emphasis on “next to”), but at the same time it feels like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge – without the Luhrmannian kitch. The redness of the drapes, the whiteness of the snow… it’s a stunning looking alternate universe.

By the Sea

However, as I already pointed out in my way-too-long opening to this review, those elements are both overshadowed by one thing. For the first half hour, you like the characters – or in fact sometimes get annoyed at their attitudes. But you like them nontheless. Then, however, comes the singing, which completely catches you off-guard and makes you love them. They don’t actually all have good voices (except for Douce, who sounds stunning) and that’s exactly the closing deal: they’re natural. They sing like you and I do: under the shower, in the car, with gusto. Right from the heart. It’s great!

The thing is, I don’t know if it’s like that for everyone. I mean: it could be. Somehow, I doubt it though: there must be people who don’t get sucked in by this – even more: who puke just at the thought of hearing grown men sing on screen. But then again: is this the kind of movie for those people? Should I take those into account when writing this? I mean: if you glance even for a second at the DVD cover, you know what you’re in for. You were warned.

In all…

This is a movie I’ll be watching again and again. Sure, the plot is a bit hairy and at times it steps right beyond the line between drama and melodrama, but in the end the whole is so consistent that you cannot help but being sucked into this film’s crazy semi-parallel universe and it’s addictive music and dancing. If you don’t like music (or especially French Chansons), you should steer away from this at all costs though – you might get hurt in the progress.

Favourite Quote:
“Le môme Jojo, il ira loin…”

The Movie…

I’ve been trying to brush up on classics lately. In doing so, I found a pretty awesome Hitchcock DVD box on Amazon and ordered it immediately. So now, I’ve been watching Hitchcock movies – in chronological order. I have to say: they’re not all good, but if they’re good, they’re great!

Shadow of a Doubt follows the adventures of Charlie and Charlie – one of them being the uncle-from-the-city, the other being the small-town-niece. The uncle, a nervous wreck, decides to take a trip to his niece and her family into the country. Why exactly he wants to do so, is a mystery that slowly gets unraveled into a thick plot of epic proportions.

The movie is from 1942, but bears almost no resemblence to another Hitchcock movie made during the second World War: Saboteur. Sure, there is a good mystery plot in there, but the scope of Shadow of a Doubt is so much smaller – which makes it into a much better, much more concentrated film. Everyone can write a conspiracy plot – it’s become a genre by itself in the USA – but a small family drama… you need to get the characters just right for that, and that’s exactly where Shadow of a Doubt succeeds: Wonderful characters going through great evolutions.

The movie looks (and sounds – great use of walzes) brilliant – even back then, Hitchcock already made some shots that made my mouth water with esthetic delight. I love how Shadow of a Doubt makes the best of the framework it’s in – something I’ve rarely seen in movies from that age. Put all the pieces together and the whole starts feeling like a typical Hitchcockian nightmare. Slightly surreal but real enough to drag you in.

In all…

The bottomline is: if you want to see a Hitchcock movie and you’ve never seen one, this one is pretty good as a starter. I myself started with Vertigo (which I will review sometime), but the symbolism and freakiness got lost on me because I didn’t know enough about the creator’s signature. Shadow of a Doubt is a bit less to look at, but everything is there (and counts in small amounts).

Favourite Quote:
Joseph Newton: We’re not talking about killing people. Herb’s talking about killing me and I’m talking about killing him.

Beam me up, Buttercup

When I read that J.J. Abrams was rebooting the Star Trek franchise, the first thought to rush through my mind was “Oh God”. Now this doesn’t mean much. I know. In fact, I didn’t know myself what I meant with it. On the one hand, I was psyched to have another Abrams movie coming. On the other hand though, Star Trek brought back memories of static acting, bad backdrops and overweight people in wheelchairs pressed into insufficient amounts of spandex spouting Klingon insults (yes, I have been to a con or two in my life).

After a while, however, and after having seen the magnificent trailers, the idea grew on me, and I realized that I actually didn’t know as much about the Star Trek universe as I thought I did. Star Trek (2009) could be my way in – I could sneak in through the back door and ignore the history the house-in-renovation had. And I’m glad I did.

Kirk and the Battle of the Bar Brawlers

In typical Abrams fashion, the bottom layer of this movie (the part of the cake that then gets topped with cream and all that good stuff) are the characters. There’s Kirk, your typical wild boy bar brawler, and on the other side of the spectrum, Spock, the condensed smart-ass with a temper perfectly hidden inside of him. These two characters alone could have their own movie, but instead they are supported by a whole bunch of underused characters (sequel! sequel!): a black chick, a chinese dude, a russian guy, a scotish lad… The list goes on. And screams SEVENTIES in my ears at a deafening volume.

Just like a lot of J.J. Abrams productions, the two main characters would get along fine if it weren’t for this one little hick-up. In the case of Star Trek, we’re talking control: should you follow your gut or think things through before going for it? Obviously, the answer is somewhere in the middle – and that’s the moral of our story. No biggie.

You’re gullible, McFly!

If you go watch this, do not expect to be blown away by the depth of the story. In fact, if you expect any kind of earnest story at all, you risk being disappointed. Star Trek seems to wander the path of Back to the Future and Indiana Jones by mocking the very thing they’re trying to convince you of. Star Trek, whilst being an awesome movie, gets quite absurd at times, uses every cliche in the book, but it’s all done with such
air and a tongue-in-cheeck attitude that you let things slide. Even if they seem to make certain errors in their own mythology. It’s all in the paradoxes.

So for those expecting to have a deep experience, you’re out of luck. The space theme is kind of passé now compared to the seventies (I groaned when I first saw a space ship in this movie), so I guess this is one of the more interesting way to still tell these kind of stories. You just need to make sure the characters are fresh and interesting… and mildly funny (even if unintended).

In all…

If you’re going to reboot a franchise, you gotta do it right. You need a careful mix of things that aged well (from which you stay far, far away) and new things to replace those that haven’t aged well. Oh, and in the case of Star Trek, you apparently also need to set up an alternate universe.

Awesome little movie. Can’t wait for the sequels.

I remember the day when I saw Adaptation. It’s one of those movies that will remain fresh in my mind for ever because of the sheer absurdism of it. The premise? Two people each write one half of a movie script – the script of the very movie they are in – which makes for one crazily distorted story and two halves that when put together, make little to no sense.

It was okay for Adaptation – that was the movie’s concept. It was not okay for Watchmen, Zack Snyder’s return after 300 and Sin City. Snyder’s known for his stylistic approach and roller-coaster kind of movies where plot is not really important. This movie – even though once again he technically didn’t invent the story himself – is no different from the two others. Oh wait, technically fifty percent of it is.
Glorious Violence!

The times, they are changing

As soon as the movie starts, it becomes apparent to you that you are watching a Snyder movie. The camera is stylish (but on a better level than this movie’s older brothers) and the violence… well, it’s very gratuitous. A little spoiler of useless violence you will be seeing during this movie (not exhaustive): a bullet being shot through a leg, a man being chopped in the head repeatedly with an axe, a man who gets boiling oil tossed over him, a man whose arms get sawn off, a running guy on fire, an arm being ripped out of its socket… Even though I usually don’t quote other reviewers, the New Yorker’s Quote on Metacritic kind of says it all on the violence for me:

The problem is that Snyder, following Moore, is so insanely aroused by the look of vengeance, and by the stylized application of physical power, that the film ends up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon.

Now I have nothing against a good bit of violence in a movie. I also think some of the fight scenes were really well done – the opener of the movie truly blew me off my chair – but this sort of graphism? Not really needed, kind of like gratuitous sex (which this movie had aswell, complete with a fl
amethrower as metaphor for the orgasm – even if it was ironic)… it usually pulls me out of the movie more than anything.

The Last Laugh

That is to be said, not all of the movie is popcorn-and-violence-based pictures. The first half of the film – which takes a lot of time setting up our “heroes” – is actually really, really deep. The backstory for every vilain is a tragic story of its own, a story filled with rape, prostitution, lost loves… This part of the movie was simply amazing and stunning, and I wished it would never end.

But it did. About 60 percent into the movie (a point at which it could have already ended – the thing is a whopping 160 minutes in length) the whole thing suddenly turns into a very generic… comic book hero movie. And with that, the whole magic of the movie is gone: the alternate 1985 (not the one from Back to the Future) suddenly felt shallow and shoddy, the overly dramatic dialogue suddenly became tacky and silly… It felt to me that as soon as the Silk Spectre put on her latex outfit, the whole crowd re-hit puberty.

In all..

Watchmen is a true mixed bag. For one, the first half is awesome – the best cinema experience of the year so far. Secondly, the second half is anything but awesome. Thirdly, and most importantly, though: this movie has no reason whatsoever to be 160 minutes in length. Kill your babies – it would’ve made this thing a lot stronger.
The whole back-to-spandex thing this movie pulls on you would have been far stronger had it only lasted for fifteen to twenty minutes. No chatting on Mars, no tacky sex scene, no endless Deus-ex-Machina pulling with Dr. Manhattan…

However, I still can’t think of a reason to truly tell people not to go see this. Because ultimately, you should. The setting and the first 60 percent of the movie are fresh and unique and pull unseens stunts on you. The introduction sequence showing the rise and fall of superheroes is amazing. Dr. Manhattan’s backstory, where Koyaanisqatsi music suddenly creeps up on you, is breathtaking. Rorschach’s tragic youth, fittingly told through ink blot tests, was unbelievable.

So why did they have to turn it into just another pop corn movie? Oh, right, the comic.

Favourite Quote:
Dan: What happened to us? What happened to the American Dream?
Edward: “What happened to the American Dream?” It came true! You’re lookin’ at it.