Tropa de Elite was already a very good movie which told the story of captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura) and his special police squad, BOPE. It was a very violent movie which was very succesful in Brazil. Reason enough to make a sequel. Is Tropa de Elite 2 a worthy sequel like The Empire Strikes Back or is it a big disappointment like Dumb and Dumberer? Continue reading
Revenge movies. It’s a genre in which South Korea seems to be specialised. At least that’s my conclusion after having seen several of them. These films are not afraid to show violence in all its gruesome detail and manage to shock and make you feel something while you are watching it. I Saw the Devil takes the revenge idea a bit further than expected as just getting revenge once does not seem to be enough. While you are watching you will feel uncomfortable about this story in which Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee (The Good, The Bad, The Weird)) wants to have revenge on a serial killer, Kyung-Chul (played by Min-sik Choi (Oldboy)), who has murdered his wife. Continue reading
Tron: Legacy was a movie that had a lot of promotion. Disney had high expectations of the sequel to the 1982 original and threw a lot of money at marketing the film. It was almost impossible to not know the movie was coming. If you didn’t see the posters, you would see the toys, the games or other products. Even when I bought my Nokia N8 it had some clips of the movie installed on it. The phone also appeared in the film itself, so it’s logical, but it does show the reach Disney has to get you to notice this film. Luckily I don’t judge movies based on their marketing and promotion, because if I would have done that this movie would have surely received a 10. Of course the most important question is whether or not Tron: Legacy is a good movie. Continue reading
Gulliver’s Travels (which was written in 1726) has been adapted for film many times. A quick look at Wikipedia shows this is the 17th film about the story, so there’s a very big chance that you already saw a version of this story about a man who ends up on the island of Lilliput inhabited by tiny people who are in a state of war with a rival island. Does Jack Black manage to give a fresh twist to this story with his humour? Continue reading
The Company Men is, as stated in my review of Inside Job, the perfect companion piece for that documentary. The movie is about three men working in a big company (played by Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper), who feel the results of the financial crisis in their personal life. They all work for GTX, which is a company that started small building ships, but has grown fast and has even bigger ambitions. Continue reading
This year Inside Job was the winner in the documentary category. It beat Gasland, Restrepo, Wasteland and Exit Through the Gift Shop. Personally I would have liked to see Exit Through the Gift Shop win the statue. I have not seen Restrepo and Wasteland, so I can’t judge those two, but does Inside Job deserve its Oscar? Continue reading
Craig Gilner (Keir Gilchrist) is a 16-year-old kid who no longer enjoys his life. He feels the pressure of everyone around him expecting things which just become too much for him and he decides to climb a bridge to commit suicide. At the last moment he can’t go through with it and checks himself into a psychiatric unit for adults at his local hospital.
You might think how this can be “kind of funny” as this is a very serious subject. The psychiatric unit does have some very colourful, crazy personalities who make sure that you will laugh sometimes. Continue reading
How boring can the life of a famous Hollywood actor be? I think that is the question, after having watched this movie, Sofia Coppola has tried to answer. To immediately answer it: Obviously extremely boring. Did she manage to create an interesting film despite this fact? Continue reading
Dwayne Johnson has managed to build quite a career for himself. After his initial fame as The Rock he made a succesful leap into movies. Initially these were roles in action movies like The Scorpion King and The Rundown, but he has also shown that he’s good at doing comedic roles in films like The Tooth Fairy, Be Cool and The Other Guys.
With Faster he returns to his roots with a “hard as nails” action movie Continue reading
I’ve been watching quite a lot of Korean movies lately and with almost every movie I’m pleasantly surprised by its quality. They have strong stories, are usually quite unpredictable and not comparable to the big Hollywood productions. Is The Man From Nowhere another movie which didn’t disappoint? Continue reading