Category: Movies

I grew up with X-Men. The cartoon ran after I got home from school, and while it wasn’t brilliant, it was enough to get me acquainted with the most basic X-Men stories. I knew about Jean Grey and the Phoenix, had a pretty tight grasp on the Wolverine origin story… but none of these stories was quite as awesome to me as Days of future Past, in which the X-Men travel back in time to eradicate the Sentinels at their core.

It was my first time travel story. I loved every bit of its twists and turns. And I also loved the movie adaptation – but for a wholly different set of reasons. Maybe I grew up?

Sure, the time travel was as sweet as ever – but really, let’s not kid ourselves: It was mainly a trick to get some sweet Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen action going. Sure, it worked, and they did provide a nice contrast with the past versions of Magneto and Charles (Fassbender and McAvoy, sexay as ever!), but ultimately, the story would’ve worked without the time travel shenanigans.

On the other hand, Days of Future Past expanded upon First Class, where our good friend Fassbender Magneto caused the Cuban missile crisis. Expect Richard Nixon, a mutant-related JFK conspiracy and some awesome Super 8 footage of Mystique with an afro.

So I guess Days of Future Past is a double time travel, in a way. Add to that a tight, unpretentious screenplay that has a very precise grip on the characters inhabiting it and you’ve got a solid two-hour rollercoaster ride to enjoy with a bag of popcorn and a coke. And that’s precisely how I like my X-men.

It’d been a while, but it happened for the first time since Peter Jackson’s King Kong: I fell asleep in the cinema. During the epic climax of the movie, no less.

Victim this time: Godzilla.

I wonder what it is about Monster movies that makes me drift off. Is it the vibrating bass in the monsters’ epic shrieks? Or maybe it’s the spastically moving CG-camera that rocks me to sleep? Or perhaps it’s the unbelievably stupid characters and dialogue?

Nah, it’s just me getting old.

(In all seriousness: Godzilla was quite okay. The plot was good enough, the dialogues were terrible – not even Bryan Cranston could save them – but nobody cared, and I loved the design for the epic monster: bulky, bearlike, almost hugable – until it shoots lasers from its mouth. Yet most importantly, Godzilla respected the ground rule of monster movies that made Cloverfield legendary to me: Size only matters in comparison. In every menacing monster money shot, there was a crane, a skyscraper or a huge bunch of people to show how massive this dude really is. Awesome. Now if only they’d use this logic for their characters: “Drama is only big in comparison.” The movie is filled with bulky army dudes with no real conflict other than a bighuge lizard stepping on their stuff – where’re the normal people, other than the one relatable dude that dies after twenty minutes?)

Warning: the following post is poorly researched. I’m sorry if it offends any hipsters or Wes Andersons out there.

I love Wes Anderson. Sure, not all of his films are equally good, but there is something about the way these movies tick that really touches me.

As a kid, I knew every Roald Dahl book by heart – and loved Fantastic Mr. Fox.  I fell madly in love with a girl in sixth grade like Sam in Moonrise Kingdom. In high school, I was Max from Rushmore – overly dramatic, ambitious but hit with terrible angst.

Um. Yeah. Anyway.

With the release of Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, I keep getting in the same argument with different people – one that springs from one question:

Are Wes Anderson movies hipster?

A lot of people seem to agree that, yes, Wes Anderson’s movies are prototypically hipster. Quirky dress sense, stilted acting, weird colours – it all points to the prototypical irony of hipster culture.

To me, however, Wes Anderson films work differently. I don’t see any irony. I see blatant, extreme, akward honesty. I don’t see a director building a wall between his characters and himself and hanging them out to dry – I see a director who takes their struggle and pain completely seriously.

I’m just going to leave these scenes here:

 

Anyway! Uneducated ramblings aside, have a person who is way better at saying what I think than me. Openculture has seven video essays about Anderson’s movies and they are well worth your time.

(PS- Maybe Anderson is so ironic the irony cancels itself out?)

Hey guys! Tired of being grown-up? Sick of hearing about taxes, work and – ick! – responsibilities? Wanna be a kid again? Now you can!

“But Bert”, you tell me, “I am a cynical adult, surely there is no way back from that!”

Sure there is. All you have to do is believe!

…I’m just kidding all you need is money to buy a ticket to the LEGO movie.

In five minutes, you’ll be a giddy little dude again, on the edge of your seat gasping at yellow brick men dancing to the tunes of a god-awful song called “Everything is awesome!”.

Side-effects include calling your mom and asking if she kept your old LEGOs and begging her to please please prettyplease get them back from your nephew/niece/whatever so you can play. They’re yours, after all, and they’re precious.

P.S.: All joking aside, LEGO movie is very entertaining and has some interesting plot twists going for it. Check it out!

So Spike Jonze ist officially my hero now. Skate movies where everyone blows up. A brilliant Maurice Sendak adaptation. One of the most touching and absurd love stories ever. Is there anything the man can’t do?

Anyway, go see Her, the brilliant love story between a man and his operating system. It’s one of the most heartfelt movies I’ve seen in quite a while, and strikes a perfect balance between earnest emotions and a crazy thought experiment. You won’t regret it!

You all know it’s no secret I like children’s movies. I love the way they can tell two stories at the same time: One for kids, and one for adults. The horse on the balcony, an Austrian film directed by the otherwise unknown Hüseyin Tabak, immediately struck me as that kind of movie. It was the kind of movie that sounded so crazy I just had to like it.

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“I found a nickel! Sure wish I had pockets.” (Mike)

I have to admit I wasn’t really looking forward to Monsters University. In fact, I was slightly worried – not worried that it might be a bad movie, per se, but that it might ruin the 2001 original, one of my favourite movies, for ever. When I got up from my seat two hours later, I was happy to find that not only is the original movie still intact, Monsters University even manages to be quite fun!

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“I told you we’d fit!”  “I’m not sure that qualifies.”

I have said this before: I never really liked Star Trek. Growing up with The Next Generation, Star Trek was always that show with the bald guy in spandex my sister used to watch. So, as you might recall, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and not only was thoroughly entertained, but finally understood what was so appealing about the multicultural guys in space in the first place. And as I saw Benedict Cumberbatch in the teaser for Star Trek Into Darkness, my mind was blown: They could literally surpass the sky as the limit.

But did they? (They did.)

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“Do you really consider speed typing a sport?”

A little confession: When I was fifteen, I enrolled in a dactylography course. It quickly became clear: I obviously had a hidden knack for ramming my fingers down on keyboards and making words appear on a screen. As the course ended, I felt I had to have written proof of my 320 strokes a minute, so I took part in a typing exam. An exam I obviously nailed, and which netted me the first diploma of my life. So it is with pride I tell you that I have been a qualified secretary since ninth grade!

It’s only obvious I wanted to see Populaire (also known as Mademoiselle Populaire) – a delightfully cute French film about the power of love. And mechanical typewriters.

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“That was a regrettable turn of events.” (Barnabus Collins)

When I saw the trailer for Dark Shadows, Tim Burton’s newest feature, I wasn’t sure what to think. It shifted colour between silly comedy red and stupid drama blue so often I was getting an epilepsy attack. That’s a bad sign: if the trailer to a straightforward movie (hey, we’re talking Burton) can’t decide on what it wants to show, it’s usually because the movie doesn’t know what it is.

Turns out that was exactly the case. Warning, this is a terribly written review for a terribly written movie. (more…)