Tag Archives: score: 4

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Pawn Sacrifice (2014)

Review Pawn Sacrifice

Hollywood loves making movies in which a genius finds success, but at the same time is plagued by his excentric side, disability or psychological issues (just think of movies like A Beautiful Mind, Rain Man, The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything). It makes it easier to offer the viewer a story about someone who is able to solve complex issues which are important, but at the same time is a human being with a flaw. Of course that means there is a lot of predictability in this type of film. With the good ones that isn’t an issue, so the question is what about this one? Continue reading →

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Journal d’une Femme de Chambre (2015)

Journal d'une femme de chambre recensie

Journal d’une Femme de Chambre is the third film adaptation of the book by Octave Mirabeau. Previous adaptations were by Jean Renoir in 1946 and in 1964 Luis Bunel. Now its director Benoît Jacquot’s turn. With Léa Seydoux (La vie d’Adèle) in the leading role he has an actress who has the qualities to convincingly play the character of Celestine, a maid who works for the upper class. Continue reading →

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Home (2015)

Review Home

Do you sometimes know that feeling? That a movie has a specific element which completely keeps you from enjoying it? On paper Home is a movie I should be able to enjoy: Fun characters, funny situations and lots of science fiction fantasy. Unfortunately the movie turned out different for me. Continue reading →

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Manny (2014)

Review Manny documentary

When growing up I regularly watched boxing matches. It always was an event when Mike Tyson or “Prince’ Naseem were fighting. Tyson was so explosive that you knew in advance that you were going to see a short match, but that it would be spectacular. Times have changed though and I haven’t followed the world of boxing anymore, which also meant that I didn’t know anything about boxer Manny Pacquiao, the subject of this documentary. Continue reading →

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Billy Bathgate (1991)

Review Billy Bathgate

I think everyone knows the situation where you’ve bought a book/game or movie which you bring open, lay down somewhere and not touch it for years. This used to happen quite a bit (although less now) to me and lately I’ve been going through some of them as it’s a shame to have unopened stuff lying around. Recently I decided to read a book I bought years ago, The Rough Guide to Gangster Movies. It’s a genre I really enjoy watching so I was looking forward to reading about gangster movies I might not have seen yet.

Although that number turned out to be not that high (as I saw quite a lot of gangster movies from the thirties and forties), there was one title which I had never heard of: Billy Bathgate. Not a title you would immediately associate with gangstermovies, but when I read that Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci and Bruce Willis all were in it I was wondering why I never heard of it. Continue reading →

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been very popular since the eighties. When growing up I watched the cartoons as well and even though I liked them I never bought the action figures. My pocket money went to the He-Man action figures and BraveStarr and after I stopped watching the cartoon I never checked out the turtles again. The characters were kept alive though in various new cartoon series and movies, but the image I have of them is still from the very first cartoons, where “Cowabunga!” was heard a lot. Continue reading →

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Wild Card (2015)

Recensie Wild Card

Is it really still necessary to write reviews of Jason Stathammovies? If you have seen a couple of them and know you enjoyed them, chances usually are that you will want to watch his latest one. You know exactly what you can expect from a Statham movie: A tought, lonely man fighting a bad guy and usually is the last one standing. So basically the ultimate action hero. So is this also the case for Wild Card? Continue reading →

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In the Blood (2014)

Review In the Blood

Every movie needs a plot as do action movies. In general those plots are usually very simple and only exist in order to string a couple of action scenes together. Whether you are able to enjoy that depends from person to person, but I can forgive a lot when it comes to action. I was able to enjoy movies like Battle L.A. or Battleship even though they generally were hated. I’m not expecting a high quality movie, but just a simple escape from reality letting me forget everything around me for a moment. Still, within the action genre there is a separation in quality. For every A title there are maybe twenty B movies. Unfortunately In the Blood belongs to that last category. Continue reading →

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White Bird in a Blizzard (2014)

Review White Bird in a Blizzard

The most important thing a movie has to strive for probably is involvement. If a viewer doesn’t feel involved in what is happening to the characters, they probably won’t enjoy your film.
There are several ways to create that involvement: strong, deep characters, shocking events that grab you or by creating a believable world. Unfortunately White Bird in a Blizzard does not manage to do any of these, despite the fact that the mother of the main character suddenly vanishes. Continue reading →

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Videogames: The Movie (2014)

Review Videogames: The Movie

I’ve written about it before, but I’m someone who grew up playing videogames. Starting on the first Pong machine my father bought almost every game console/computer which came out and it is something I continued. I played games on the Atari 2600, MSX, Commodore 64, Amiga, Mega Drive, Dreamcast, Playstation etc. Although time is currently an issue (I can’t dedicate as much of it to gaming as I’d like to and I might only finish a maximum of 4 or 5 games a year) my gamer heart is still pumping. The history of gaming doesn’t hold too many secrets for me. Besides reading Edge magazine for years I also have read several books about the subject. Now there is this documentary which you’d expect, purely base on the title, to be THE ultimate movie about the subject. The question is: is it? Continue reading →