European Cinema - part trois

[jomari]

Arn: The Knight Templar

Saw this recently via NEtflix streaming (HD), pretty decent flick for what its worth.

First off, it was made in 2007, and i can compare it somewhat to Kingdom of Heaven (JUST for the reason its based in the holy wars, aside from that no other commonality)...

Great storyline, albeit at times can be slow and tedious. This is yet another swede movie, and have found a greater respect for their movies. This includes some familiar faces, including the Gent from The gurl who series (the journalist)... Stellan Skarsgard (the guy in good will hunting - the professor, the traitor in 'Ronin' with De Niro, and er... the father of whatshisface in Pirates...

decent flick, albeit around 2 hour mark. definitely worth the journey.

 

[Barney]

Just added to two "The Girl....." movies to my list. Thanks.

 

[CMonster]

Just added to two "The Girl....." movies to my list. Thanks.

Netflix streaming of the third one will be available on 1/25...

 

[jomari]

Just added to two "The Girl....." movies to my list. Thanks.

Netflix streaming of the third one will be available on 1/25...

right on! thanks for the heads up cmonster! i was wondering about that...

its wierd, ive only seen the two on streaming, and find it er... a leash for me nowadays to buy movies. i end up double checking if its 'streamed' or not, then make the decision based on price point.

 

[PaulyT]

watched G. Del Toros movie, Cronos, over the weekend. This was one of his first 'mainstream' movies to hit the market back in 1993.

Of course its dated, but the storyline was solid enough for me, and found it quite interesting. one thing i dig about it was, considering the era, he was already fiddling with that frame thingy, stop frame animation, and thought it was amazing.

great rental, its on netflix right now. Give it a go for an hour and a half.

Watched this one last night and ... well ... no offense Jomari but I thought the whole movie was just kinda silly. Plot-wise it didn't do anything at all for me. Plus I was watching it streamed via netflix, and the "frame thingy" did not translate well, it was jumpy and ragged the entire time. Dunno what it was supposed to look like when played on disc, but it's not a good streamer. (Other stuff, even HD, looks way better for me.)

Oh well, no biggie.

 

[jomari]

the framerate i must admit kept on stuttering, i guess i was referring to the stop motion thing he did with inanimate objects (the device itself)...

i guess i considered the storyline being solid given its time it was created.

one other thing i kinda got after watching it, was 'who' was the real 'vampire' in the story, the rich guy who wanted so much for the item at hand, or the storeowner who accidentally 'needed' immortality?

i thought a bit too much into this movie, but then again, its worth a rental.

for those interested, try watching it via DVD, to avoid the framerate issues we both had. thanks for the input pauly, im glad you appreciated my posting tho.

 

[PaulyT]

True, it is an older movie, maybe I was just expecting something different... Another thing I couldn't get over was how annoying Ron Perlman was in this, I suppose it was pretty early in his career, but his role/character/acting was just awful to me. Dunno if it was just him or the writing/directing or what.

No prob, even if I don't enjoy a movie, it's still fun to do the back-and-forth thing through the forum, to get an idea of what you and others like, dislike, etc.

 

[jomari]

i definitely agree on Ron Perlmans character, but i guess he took it over the top when Del Toro wanted an 'arrogant american' so to speak.

anyways, in fairness, it was early in his career.

im glad that someone actually enjoyed one or two post regarding stuff ive reviewed. of late, it kinda makes me wonder why bother.

thank you sir, for shedding a little hope on this.

give Arn a chance, im sure you'd enjoy that movie better than Cronos.

i am planning on watching er... i forgot already. will update soon enough.

 

[jomari]

watched Hornets Nest a couple days back, good streaming quality, and in a nutshell, a great capper to a trilogy. (i THINK this was the end of the series, was it?)

anyways, probably the only one out of the three without any akward sex scenes.

Story was solid, and worth its time and tribulations that the two started with.

Im not much of a big fan for the Girl series, but then again, i havent read the book either, thus consider my opinion on the movies as moot.

 

[jomari]

saw a blu-ray of 'Let me in'... and was afraid of what it was.

hollywood does it again.

 

[zod]

watched Hornets Nest a couple days back, good streaming quality, and in a nutshell, a great capper to a trilogy. (i THINK this was the end of the series, was it?)

anyways, probably the only one out of the three without any akward sex scenes.

Story was solid, and worth its time and tribulations that the two started with.

Im not much of a big fan for the Girl series, but then again, i havent read the book either, thus consider my opinion on the movies as moot.

I saw it twice recently. The original cut of the movie left out the affair with Monica Figueralo and some other things. I picked up on the Monica thing from the movie and confirmed it later. The story line is still solid in spite of that. The books have a number of significant differences especially in the Lisbeth/Mika relationship and a lot more nuance.

SWMBO has been to Gothenburg a number of times and pointed out at least a half dozen places she recognized. I've found these movies easy to watch: the scenery looks like northern Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan and I know some German.



Spoiler alert: In spite all that Lisbeth has been thru, she can't kill.

 

[jomari]

i didnt know that little tidbit!

interesting!

 

[zod]

i didnt know that little tidbit!

interesting!

In the book, Monica was described as liking as two things exercise and sex. Mikke gets all the hot women: Erika, Lisbeth and Monica. Movies that have many dimensions. I found myself looking at the moral and ethical levels.

 

[Hot Monkey]

OK so I can't believe I am saying this but the Hollywood remake of Let The Right One In (Let Me In) is actually not that bad. If it were an original film and not a remake I might even place it pretty very high up on my list of recent Hollywood horror films. But of course it is a remake (virtually frame for frame in some shots) so I can't give it that kind of praise. But I can say it was totally watchable and the child actors were pretty solid. If nothing more it is fun to watch and compare to the original. It took a few Hollywood liberties with mildly enhanced gore and CGI effects but otherwise was pretty faithful to the spirit and mood of the original. Now why can't Hollywood come up with this kind of stuff on their own (the eternal unanswered question)? If you are as big a fan of the original as I am then I would say this is worth a rental just for pure curiousity. I am also getting ready to re-watch the re-release of the original with corrected theatrical subtitles that were not chopped/dumbed down for American movie watching consumption. I expect there will simply be more in depth dialog and no major changes. I will report back if there is anything earth shattering. I am betting I prefer the original. I think the limited simple dialog is a key part of the success of this movie. If you want more details read the book. It has a whole pile of additional info and expanded story line.

Monkey

 

[jomari]

SPOILER ALERT!


so, the question lies - is the pool scene the same, better or too much in he hollywood version? did they censor out some scenes (including the 'britney' shot?)

 

[zod]

I am also getting ready to re-watch the re-release of the original with corrected theatrical subtitles that were not chopped/dumbed down for American movie watching consumption. Monkey

That's a lot of why I sought out the Hong Kong release of Return of the Dragon. Watching it with subtitles in the original Mandarin made a lot more sense and it's probably the best print out there to boot. I saw Godzilla as a kid and couldn't really understand why Raymond Burr was in the film. Gojira made a lot more sense.

 

[Hot Monkey]

Gojira made a lot more sense.

So true,

so, the question lies - is the pool scene the same, better or too much in he hollywood version? did they censor out some scenes (including the 'britney' shot?)

SPOILER ALERT
SPOLIER ALERT

IMO they both enhanced and ruined the pool scene. That sounds goofy but I will try to explain. The pool scene in the original was such a perfact piece of film making (and consistant with the rest of the film) in that the imagined unseen horror and violence of what was happening above water was almost more effective then if we were actually seeing what was going on. Plus it is from the 1st person perspective of the boy from under water so that worked well too. IMO this scene in the original is one of the most effective bits of horror movie cinematography to come along in decades. In the remake they pretty much ruin this concept by showing us a peek at both some of the violence and more of the aftermath. Having said that... knowing this is a remake... and not taking it too seriously... it was a bit of a guilty pleasure to actualluy see the bully kids get torn apart limb from limb. And so I have to confess I enjoyed watching the scene even though it gave in to the typical Hollywood temptation to show more rather then less. It almost felt like I was being shown a different camera angle that was edited out of the original when the director of the original decided to go with the more subtle and effective "less is more" presentation. Almost like it was a scene from the DVD extra's or deleted scenes frrom the original.

So yes they ruin it but IMO it's still satisfying to watch in a twisted way.

And yes they omit the Brittney peek at the girls (lack of) reproductive organs. The scene does happen but we never see anything revealing or graphic. Which IMO makes the scene totally confusing and pointless in the remake. If there is no reference to this fact and so if we don't know ahead of time that an obscure part of vampire lore is that they eventually become genderless then as first time viewers of the remake we would have no idea why this scene had any purpose. It's almost like they assumed we had seen the original and/or read the book in order to understand what just happened.

Monkey

 

[jomari]

thanks for the clarification Monkey,

SPOILERS!!!

i guess my thoughts on both matters are

1. you are correct, the pool scene in the original version was if not one of the most clever way of 'hashing out a scene from a book' , but as inventive as ive seen in 'mainstream' movies.

2. that scene, albeit somewhat 'obscene' for others, in the vampire lore, it IS a significant part of their culture, revealing not only that they 'arent' boys or girls, but more or less act out of purity i guess, out of love. in Anne Rice's Chronicles, it also shows how they love, they take care of each other because their the opposite sex, but just being unconditional in nature.

Man, i miss our conversations like this.

I cant wait till they show the remake of Old Boy.

 

[Hot Monkey]

Man, i miss our conversations like this.

Ditto.

If there were enough damn hours in the day I would spend several each day just hashing out movie reviews, details and debates online with you guys.

Monkey

 

[jomari]

maybe in time, monkey, when you get the chance, when time opens up for you, let me know, id be more than happy to resend my 'asian collection' (and no matt, its not THAT one), to you to watch a flick or two.