There is a market for just about everything and even for the strangest items there are buyers available. This is also the case when it comes to health. When someone knows he won’t have a long time to live unless he/she finds a donor they will search for any option that might solve their problem. One of the possibilities is illegally having an operation done where you pay someone else to donate one of their organs. This documentary jumps into the world of the trade in kidneys. Continue reading
Recently a computer managed to pass the legendary Turing test by fooling quite a lot of people that they were chatting with a thirteen year old boy. A computer passes the test when it shows intelligent behaviour making it impossible to distinguish it from a human.
The development in this field of computing is going fast and it isn’t hard to imagine that within the next 15 years a lot of progress will be made. It might not yet mean that people will become replaceable, but if an intelligent computer is similar to a human there is certainly some competition. Could that eventually lead to situations made popular by movies like The Matrix or The Terminator? The machine is a science fiction movie which gives its own vision on artificial intelligence and asks the viewer what it is that makes us human. Continue reading
Books have always been a rich source for movie adaptations. Often those who have read the book aren’t happy with the movie because part of the movie are different or have disappeared. Of course that’s something inherent to adaptations as it will never be possible to show all the details a book has. It is simply a different art form with its own rules. The Price of Sugar is based on the book with the same name and was written by Cynthia Mc Leod and is set during the time that the Dutch had conquered Surinam and were using slaves. The expectations amongst the fans of the book were high, especially because there aren’t many movie set in Surinam. When it became known that the movie wouldn’t be shot there, but in South Africa, many were shocked. The reason though was a practical one: Surinam simply didn’t have enough locations that could be used to bring the story to life. So is The Price of Sugar a successful adaptation? Continue reading
The world’s religions have made (and are still making) a huge impact on the world. Wars are being fought about it and people are still discriminated because they don’t have the same religion. I see it as something which could be guide you in your life to make the right decisions, even though I’m not religious myself. The two men who are being followed in this documentary, scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss, want to use science to prove that there is no God and regularly discuss this with religious people. Continue reading
Lots of people are probably not aware that Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston already has had a long career. Looking at his IMDB profile he already has 132 TV show and movie titles to his name. Thanks to his role as the meth making scientist in Breaking Bad he became well-known and he appeared in some high-profile movies like Drive, John Carter, Total Recall, Argo and Godzilla. In most of these movies he had supporting roles, but in this movie the 58-year-old actor is starring, together with Alice Eve. Continue reading
There are moments where you really have to appreciate the things you have. Something as simple as the place you have been born can determine the rest of your life. As this documentary shows a huge part of the world’s population is living in poverty and have to survive on a dollar a day. It Is such a small amount of money and almost impossible to imagine. I know I’ll spend that easily on a candy bar or other snack while there are families that will have to feed themselves for a whole day with that money. It won’t be hard to realize that this means other things like paying for education or medicine can’t be done. Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple (together with two friends) decided to try to live on 1 dollar a day for two months in Guatemala and document their experience. Continue reading
Can you make a fascinating movie about an auctioneer? As you can imagine the auction itself could be exciting, with people in the room and on the phone trying to outbid each other to get their hands on some specific art. But what if the auction has ended? As The Best Offer proves you can do a whole lot to make sure the viewer is on the edge of his seat. Continue reading
Every movie gives its own spin to specific themes. Themes like love or revenge are the same in their basic concept, but the way it is brought to the big screen can take various forms. Sometimes there are movies who deal with a specific theme and have a lot of similarities, often not even purposefully. When watching Big Bad Wolves, which Quentin Tarantino chose as his favorite movie of the year, I couldn’t help thinking about Prisoners. Both movies are about the love a father has for his child and the actions he is prepared to take to find out the truth. In both movies they are willing to go very far to let people talk that they are expecting are responsible for the disappearance of their daughter. Continue reading
Control, it is all about control. Every dictatorship has one obsession and that’s it. [..] Strategies to limit information, ideas, knowledge. How do they do that? Lower education, they limit culture, censor information. [..] This is a pattern that repeats itself throughout history – Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal)
Directors could be compared with dictators. For the length that the audience is watching a movie they decide which information they get to see. By limiting it or showing it slightly different a director is able to build up the tension or control expectations. With their “suspension of disbelief” the movie watcher happily gives the movie maker that control. Enemy is the newest movie by Denis Villeneuve (who was also responsible for the fantasticPrisoners) with Jake Gyllenhaal in a double role. Continue reading
Every year the cinema will be host to a couple of dance movies, which usually disappoint when it comes to story. It still is a very popular subgenre though because the scenes you will watch these movies for (the dancing ones) are usually spectacular (something which stands out in the Step Up series). Battle of the Year is an interesting dance film because director Benson Lee was responsible for the interesting documentary Planet B-Boy, in which he followed various crews from different countries, preparing and participating in what is seen as the world championship of B-Boying, Battle of the Year. With this movie he does the same thing, but this time with a fictional story. Does he manage to deliver a movie that is just as fascinating as his previous documentary? Continue reading