Tag Archives: score: 8

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The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Review of The Thirteenth Floor

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 →

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My Best Fiend – Klaus Kinski (1999)

Review of the documentary about Klaus Kinski by Werner Herzog

If you look up Klaus Kinski on IMDB you see that he has acted in an impressive 135 movies and TV shows. Yet I have only seen him in one movie, the brilliant Fitzcarraldo. With a constant ferocious look in his eyes I always got the feeling from watching that movie that he was someone who was hard to predict and who had a flicker of madness in his eyes, just like the character he played. Werner Herzog (whose work I almost always enjoy watching) has worked with him on five films and had a special relationship with him. He already knew him from a time when he was a lot younger, living in the same house. With this documentary, made after Klauski’s passing Herzog looks back at the life of this man he had worked with but with whom he had also fought several times, which almost resulted in Herzog firebombing his house at one time. Continue reading →

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Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story (2013)

Review of Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story (2013)

TLC was only a little over ten years ago, one of the biggest female groups in existence. Since they brought out their first album in 1991, the trio consisting of Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and singer Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, was a mainstay in the charts. Their mix of R&B with a hip hop edge earned a big number of fans. Those fans helped the group sell millions of records, but behind the success they did have issues. Their contracts were bad and it meant they were hardly earning any money of their sales. When Left Eye died in a car crash in Honduras in 2002 it meant an end to the career of the band. Although the two remaining members appeared on some shows to talk and sometimes perform there wasn’t any new music available. Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story, which got the stamp of approval from T-Boz and Chilli, now looks back at the history of the group in the form of a bio-pic starting from their discovery until Left Eye’s untimely death. Is it only a must see for fans or will it be able to appeal to the younger generation as well, who did not grow listening to any TLC music? Continue reading →

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The East (2013)

Review of The East

Some of you may know Brit Marling as an actress who played in Arbitrage as the daughter of Richard Gere’s character. The actress doesn’t only act, she also wrote and produced Sound of My Voice, Another Earth and now this movie. Ever since I saw her in Another Earth I really enjoyed her work as the previously mentioned movies were unique. Both Another Earth and Sound of My Voice were stories set against a sci-fi background (an actual second earth and time travel respectively). Those elements did not play a big part of the story, but it gave those movies a different feel. Although The East does not contain a sci-fi angle it does share a similarity with Sound of Voice. It is about a woman who wants to become part of a group to investigate it (just like the main characters in Sound of My Voice). That group is called The East. Continue reading →

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The Way Way Back (2013)

Review of The Way Way Back

Forming a new family feeling when your father or mother has found a new love is challenging. That new person has to find his/her place in the house without forcing themselves into a position where they take the place of someone who is not there anymore. In the Way Way Back we follow a family who is going to a beach house to try and become closer. Duncan (Liam James) is a fourteen year old boy who is the silent type who likes to stay at the house and does not spend a lot of time with other kids. His mother has a new boyfriend (Steve Carrell) who on the way to the beach house makes clear to him what he thinks of him and it isn’t positive. It’s one of those summers which could change their relationship forever. Continue reading →

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World War Z (2013)

World War Z (2013) review

When it comes to the zombie genre I’m pretty much an inexperienced movie watcher. If I have to make a list of movies with zombies I’ve seen it is very short: Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. I never understood the obsession with zombies but I have to admit that I really enjoyed the two movies I have seen about them. I scored both of them quite high. So now there is World War Z, which takes the concept of the zombie and gives it its own twist. These zombies are not the slow-moving undead you are used to, these are zombies with rabies, extremely quick and very aggressive as the opening of the movie quickly makes clear. Continue reading →

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The Big Hit (1998)

Review of The Big Hit

If this image above interests you than I can already tell you that you should check out The Big Hit if you have not seen it yet. It quickly summarises this over the top action movie perfectly as it both silly and entertaining. I had not seen this movie in ages and when I recently was browsing IMDB it came by in the suggestions. It was a film I had forgotten about until I saw its poster and I just had to revisit it. Continue reading →

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Everything is a remix (2011)

Everything is a remix review

First thing you might be thinking when you read that title on a movie blog is that this is a movie about how there isn’t much originality when it comes to movies. You’d be partly right as this documentary shows, but Everything is a Remix covers more than only movies and in three parts it looks at inventions, music, movies and patents to prove that new inventions might not always be original, but it is the combination of ideas which can lead to breakthroughs. Continue reading →

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Oslo, 31. august (2011)

Sometimes the opening of a movie can immediately set the tone and capture your attention. Oslo, 31. august is one of those movies as the viewer is introduced to Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) as he is walking around Oslo into a forrest. It turns out that he is trying to commit suicide, jumping into the water holding a heavy rock. It doesn’t take long before you find out that he is a recovering drug addict. He is allowed to go to Oslo for a job interview and this movie follows him during that day. Continue reading →

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Monsters University (2013)

Review of Monsters University (2013)

Monsters Inc was the 4th movie which Pixar made in 2001. The story about monsters who scared children at night to generate energy for their own world was a big hit. The main characters of the movie, Sully (John Goodman) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) had a believable connection en the little girl in the movie, Boo, won over many hearts. The movie also brought new technical implementation with realistically simulating Sully’s hair en Boo’s clothing. With Monsters University Pixar returns to this world. The question is whether this prequel will manage to reach the high bar set by Monster Inc. Continue reading →