Tag Archives: score: 10

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Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

Andrew Bagby is a 28-year-old medical student who starts a relationship with 41-year-old Shirley Jane Turner. Although his parents and friends get a weird feeling about it, it seems that she makes him happy, at least for a while. He decides to end the relationship, but it’s something Turner can’t handle and his lifeless body is found in a park. It’s a big shock to his family and friends, which gets bigger once they find out that she is pregnant with his child.

When director Kurt Kuenne, one of his childhood friends with whom he made a lot of home movies, hears the story he decides to make a documentary about Andrew. The goal is that this can be shown to his son Zachary when he’s older. This way he can learn who his father was. This movie is more than just a story about Andrew. It is one of the most emotionally gripping documentaries I’ve ever seen. Continue reading →

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Groundhog Day (1993)

There are movies which I will watch on TV if I just happen to see it playing (although I actually hate to watch movies on cable because of all the commercial breaks). Coming to America is one of those movies and Groundhog Day is another one. Bill Murray is weather man Phil who, together with his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott), travels to the little village of Punxsutawney to report on Groundhog Day, the day on which a groundhog does a prediction on how long the winter will last.

Everything seems like routine job and Phil heads back home. They find out quickly they won’t be able to make it because of blizzard and are forced to return to Punxsutawney. It will be Phil’s longest day. Lees verder

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The Abyss (1989)

The Abyss is a movie which I had not seen before. It tells the story of a diving team that are asked to find a lost nuclear submarine, but find something else they were not expecting. It’s the first of Cameron’s films where he used extensive CGI to tell his story. When you look at the scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 goes through the glass of the helicopter you see that this movie allowed it. Cameron’s use of CGI has only increased over the year resulting in the almost complete CGI movie Avatar. Continue reading →

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Black Swan (2010)

As it’s the last day of the year I think there is no better way to end it by reviewing my movie of the year by letting it skip the queue of upcoming reviews. With Black Swan I had the same feeling as I had with The Social Network. I was wondering how a movie about a specific subject, in this case ballet, could be interesting. If you check out the dance movies which came out lately you will notice that most of them are targeting a young audience with the drama in those films being equal to the levels you see in your average soap opera. As I try to never watch movie trailers and try to know as little as I can about films in advance, I was in for a big, but very pleasant, surprise. Continue reading →

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Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

The second world war has had a big impact on Japan. It lost a lot of power, cities were left in ruins and the military was no longer important. I’ve been to Hiroshima and was at the spot above which the atom bomb was detonated and if you see that place and the accompanying museum you are really at a loss for words. I had the same thing when I visited the Tokyo war museum, in which there were a couple of rooms with the walls lined with only pictures of people who lost their lives during the war. It has made a big impression on me.

Grave of the Fireflies tells the personal story of Setsuko and Seita, brother and sister who try to survive the war. The loss of their mother has already changed their lives, but because of it Setsuko is forced to leave the town and take care of his little sister. As the Americans keep bombarding the country it is very hard to survive as there is hardly anything to eat. Every day they have to search for a way to survive. Continue reading →

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Old Boy (2003)

Just imagine walking on the street, being kidnapped and being held in a normal apartment. You are free to move around the apartment and do you own things, but there is no way to leave. Every day you receive food through a hole in the door and every night you are forced to fall asleep as gas is injected into the room. You have no idea why you are there and how long it will be until you are released. Days turn into weeks, weeks slowly turn into years. What would you do if you are suddenly released after 15 years? Continue reading →

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Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Singing in the Rain is a classic song from a classic movie which I must have hummed quite a few times while walking through the rain, but I had never seen the movie. As it has a spot in the IMDB top 250 it was enough reason to see it.

Singin’ in the rain is set at then end of the twenties, when Warner Bros was the first to release a successful movie with sound, The Jazz Singer. Other studios needed to keep up. Gene Kelly and Jean Hagen are Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont, two actors who have become stars during the silent era of movie. The current movie they are working in is picked to be the first movie their studio will add sound to. Continue reading →

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Léon (1994)

Luc Besson is one of France’s most famous directors. He’s responsible for a lot of well-known movies like the Taxi, Transporter and Banlieu 13 series, he wrote the story for From Paris with Love and the Fifth Element. When he had to wait for Bruce Willis (he was doing another movie) to start filming the Fifth Element, he decided to write a script, which resulted in Léon, a story about an assassin who unexpectedly ends up having to take care of a young girl. Continue reading →

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Paprika (2006)

What’s the best way a filmmaker can visualize dreams on the big screen? Of course there are the nightmare scenes where the person suddenly wakes up, sweating, but how do you show that very surrealistic feeling you have when you dream? With Inception Christopher Nolan showed his vision about dreams. The movie had some great effects (like the city folding up and all the action in the hotel), but despite these effects and the nice sets the dreams themselves were not that strange, sometimes almost normal. This is not the case with Paprika and it shows how fantastic and scary dreams can be and it does so (at least I think so) better than Inception. Continue reading →

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Dumb and Dumber (1994)

Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) are two friends who are both dreaming of starting their own worm shop. They try to raise enough money with their work to make their dream a reality. When one of Lloyds female customers “forgets” her briefcase he sees an opportunity to see her, Mary Swanson, again. He really likes her and convinces Harry to join him on a journey to Aspen. They are both extremely stupid which results in extremely funny situations. Continue reading →