Various movie franchises exist where I suffer from selective memory loss. In my movie mind a second and third Hangover movie don’t exist, Analyze This never got a sequel and after the first Matrix movie only some spectacular outtakes appeared. After the first two Terminator movies it was a shame no others were made. It was time to revisit those two movies, starting with the first one. Continue reading
In the perfect world it would be amazing if you could watch a movie without prior knowledge of any movie that came before if. Only then it would be possible to let the movie lead you and not notice each and every cliché you have seen in other films. The problem a remake has is that everyone knows the original version and will obviously compare the two. Usually the original wins in that comparison. After Total Recall, Robocop is the second Paul Verhoeven movie that gets remade. Verhoeven said in an interview I had with him that he thought the remake of Total Recall wasn’t good because that light touch he put in it had been removed. He also saw that danger for this movie when it was still in production. The question is if this remake is worth checking out. Continue reading
After recently watching the amazing Gattaca I was searching for a similar technothriller. A quick search on IMDB suggested I should check out this 2002 movie in which Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam) is leading a normal and boring life. He is looking for a challenge and a certain thrill. He gets to opportunity to apply for a job at one of the two biggest companies in the country. His work? Industrial espionage, which would allow him to travel a lot away from his nagging wife. He is hired and is sent to various conventions, having to sit through endless and boring presentations which he has to secretly record and send back. When he meets the mysterious and very attractive Rita Foster(Lucy Liu) she shows him that the work he is doing might not be what he thinks it is and that a whole other reality is hidden behind it. Continue reading
When the previous movie rebooted the Spiderman universe I actually was not too interested in seeing the film. I felt it was unnecessary to start it all again, this time with a different actor playing the title role. It was probably a year later that I finally checked out the movie and to my surprise I thought it was very good. I preferred Andrew Garfield over Tobey Maguire as he felt less awkward and more in control of the situation. The story was interesting as well (even though I already knew the story through the first three movies), so I was ready for the sequel. The webslinger is back, so this time I had to see the movie on the big screen. Continue reading
In the world of Gattaca who you are is defined by your genes. Designer babies whose DNA has been altered have become a reality and genetic imperfections have been removed as much as possible. Still there are some parents who decide that they won’t let science alter their child and have nature take its course. Unfortunately in the society of Gattaca that immediately means a disadvantage. After they have been born a test is done to see how old a child will be and which diseases it will have in its life. Although it is forbidden by law to deny someone a job based on their genes this type of discrimination has become commonplace. A hair, some saliva or a glass someone touched are all that is needed to extract DNA and check the records of an applicant. It means that “natural babies” don’t get hired for the best jobs.
Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) has experienced this and can only work as a janitor at Gattaca. The company is not unlike the NASA, but here thousand of people are at work to make sure their can be a launch each day. Vincent has been dreaming of going into space since he was a child and he is prepared to do anything to get there. To get the job he really wants he has to make some big changes in his life in order to make that a reality. Continue reading
Technology is developing at an exponential rate. The machines which once were considered supercomputers and occupied whole rooms now fit in the palm of your hand. That exponential growth does not seem to stop anytime soon and many futurists already try to look ahead and predict where it will lead us. Ray Kurzweil is one of them, who predicts that there will be a moment where our minds simply will not be able to keep up with artificial intelligence, which will end up changing society. He even thinks there will be a moment where we no longer will need our physical bodies anymore and we can just upload ourselves to a computer, basically granting us eternal life and opening up new experiences. It is a subject I have always been interested in, seeing where technology will take mankind. Her is one vision of a future which to me does not sound that far-fetched. Continue reading
What if you were able to manipulate time? How would you use it? Would you think about making a lot of money and buy a sports almanac or would you try to make other changes to history? Playing around with time has always been a very entertaining concept in movies, it is something which sometimes challenges conventional thinking and that is the reason I like the films so much. In About Time, a father (Bill Nighy) tells his son Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) about a big family secret: All the men in the family can travel through time. No special machines required, simply standing in a dark place and clenching your fists is enough to travel. The only restriction is that you can only travel back to moments in your own life. Although the power can be used for a lot of things he decides to use it to find a girlfriend. Continue reading
During the last couple of months I have played a lot of Grand Theft Auto 5. It is a beautiful looking game which creates a very convincing world. People drive their cars, do their daily business, cinemas play movies, celebrity bus tours drive around, there is a huge number of details, many which I’ll probably never notice/run into. The game allows you to switch between three characters at any moment and if you are not playing with the other two they will just do their own things. Although this is a game it made me wonder at times how these characters would experience me taking control or the impact my actions would have on random passers-by. I basically wondered how real their world would feel for them. It is a subject which has been explored in movies. The Matrix is probably the most famous example, but Existenz and Dark City also deal with it. The Thirteenth Floor is also a very interesting take and actually close to what I was thinking about while playing GTA5. Continue reading
As a movie blogger you carry around knowledge about movies. Whether or not you like it that knowledge will automatically activate whenever you watch any movie. You will notice specific techniques and sometimes recognise certain situations as they remind you of other films you saw before. It is next to impossible to ignore that and that’s something R.I.P.D. definitely has been struggling with if I were to believe the few reviews I’ve read of the movie. Continue reading
There are some movies which deserve the term ‘experience’. They manage to completely transport you to another world or place and really make you forget about the world around you. Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void was the last movie I used that term, but Gravity is also a movie which deserves that title ‘experience’. It’s one of those landmark movies which only appears once every few years. Continue reading