Me and my friend Andreas accidently went to see Kingdom of Heaven yesterday. We had extremely low hopes having seen the trailer but thought we'd give Ridley Scott a second chance.

What a load of crap it was. It was constantly unrealistic and pathetic. All the bladdering about honour, love and pride made us sick. One word summorizes Orlando Bloom's character: pretentious!

There's a moment when he speaks to the soldiers before a war like we've seen so many times in Braveheart, Lord of the Rings etc. except this time I get uneasy in my seat because it's so god damn embarrasing. Don't get me started on the recurring theme where the main character tries to prove that you don't have to a lord or knight to accomplish this and that.

I feel sorry for the people who kind of people who like stories like this. It's been done a million times before but those other times much less pretentious and often with a hint of humanity.

There were some impressive scenes I must admit but I'm hoping that Ridley Scott just got trapped with his wonderful camera techniques in a shitty screenplay given to him by senseless executives.

I knew nothing about this film went I went to see it at the cinema yesterday. No one had told me that it was a comedy and the opening scenes gives the impression of a black depressing film about a alcoholic loser who hates his life and contemplates committing suicide. Well, this is what the film is about. Him and his partner, a shopping mall and a fat bullied kid.

What makes the film to funny is the language Santa (played by Bill Bob Thornton) uses. The swearing and the sarcasm. Comedy is always funny if it's unexpected. The story is really quite sad and destructive much like Leaving Las Vegas and in such a morose environment every little joke is much appreciated.

Go and see this film. Don't expect a joyride but do muse over some of the little things in it.

UPDATE: Check out these photos of kids being afraid of santa

Have you, like me, had problems with downloaded .AVI files that you can't fast forward? There's a solution to that. Install mplayer and run it like this:

 Z:\Films>mplayer -idx Movie.avi

Classic Movie Scripts is a site that hosts a long lists of, unsurprisingly: movie scripts. The list isn't very long but keep it in mind, it might grow. I was happy to find the script to Annie Hall by Woody Allen. One of my favourite films of all times. This is taken from Annie Halle:

                        ALVY 
        Tsch, I know.  A relationship, I think, 
        is-is like a shark, you know?  It has 
        to constantly move forward or it dies. 
                (He sighs) 
        And I think what we got on our hands 
                (Clearing his throat) 
        is a dead shark.

This Sunday I went to see S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine at NFT which is what I wrote about in The Chinese Martial Arts Film at BFI

It was a documentary about the prison camps under the Angkar regime in the late seventies. Victims (the few of them who survived) and prison guards met and talked about what happened. A recurring theme was the indoctrination of the prison guards who still until this day can't explain the cruelty the were responsible for. Some of the stories about the interrogations sound very much like 1984 by George Orwell, but for real. Horrible.

BFI (British Film Institute) is running a Chinese Martial Arts month. From their calendar of films by date I only recognised the name of one film, and I thought I had seen so many of these films.

The premise, as I've understood it, is to uncover that there is such much more than just Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. One film I'd like to see is Return to the 36th Chamber

As I was browsing their website I also found this that I want see: S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

Here are directions to NFT

Have you ever seen any of these films: Kids, Gummo, Ken Park? They're all by the same director (Harmony Korine).

It's Dogma 95 certified but doesn't "jump" like films like The Idiots (Lars von Trier) or The Celebration (Fredrik Vinterberg). In Julien Donkey-Boy there are long scenes, but sometimes it's like a rapid slideshow of images with deliberate out-of-sync sound. A central theme of the film is schizophrenia, and the film really succeeds in depicting this.

This is not the kind of film you have dinner to whilst watching. It's revolting and disturbing but you can't stop watching and it really gets your brain going. Not like The Usual Suspects or Groundhog Day, where you think back at the details.

Lost In Translation is a beautiful little film about an American man and a woman, alone and misery in Tokoyo. He's an old movie celebrity. She is the wife of a fashionable photographer. They are both very lonely and are desperate to go back to America again. They don't know a word of Japanese and the Japanese don't know a word of English. Well, they know some but when they speak they mix up the r's and the l's. "Have a nice fright", "lip the stockings" they say.

There they are. Lonely at the hotel they're staying in and after some time they become friends and start to enjoy themselves. Their happiness isn't show by their words or actions. It's instead shown by how they enjoy Tokoyo.

With time they become better and better friends. Just on the verge of being romantic. He's much older than her and they're both married but somewhat uncertain of their marriages. It's kind of like forbidden love, still not like some many other cheesie movies. They kind of love that was acted out in this film is very rare in movies.

I really like Bill Murray who plays the leading role with Scarlett Johansson. There's lots of good humour throughout the film.

A returning joke is the language barrier. Something that I personally feel resemblance with from when I moved to France.

You should definitely try to go and see this film. I recommend it. Here's the page IMDB.com

On Thursday morning 11AM, David and I met to go and see Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. Long waited but still feared for it's length: 202 minutes (3 hours and 22 minutes + adverts). The cinema was only half full but we had the luck to go at the same time as some 150 school-kids who did NOT have the patience to sit 4 hours. It was noisy but we learnt to ignore it after a couple of hours.

It was mighty. Magnificent and mighty. Environmental scenes that makes you think it's an IMAX documentary. The acting was better than the two other two films I think, but maybe you simply appreciate them more between all the massive landscape scenes.

I haven't read the book otherwise I would probably also find flaws like this pessimist apparently has.

My biggest concern was that too many things happened too quickly. In the first two films I managed to follow everything but this time it felt like too many things had to be squeezed in to remain under three and a half hours. Maybe they should have done this last film in two parts both 3 hours long. Looking forward to download the Extend DVD version from the net when available.

People on IMDB.com seem to like it

"Adaptation was supposed to have been a straightforward adaptation of the fact-based novel The Orchid Thief but instead Kaufman turned his script into the story of his problems adapting such a difficult book for the screen."

I saw this film today and it is probably one of oddest and softest films I've seen in a looong time.

It's about a Hollywood screenplay-writer called Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) and his twin brother Donald (also played by Nicolas Cage). Charlie is the sensitive and talented one but has absolutely no confidence in himself or his work. He envies his brother Donald who is just as extrovert as Charlie is introvert. Here's a picture from the film

Charlie's job is to write a screenplay based on a book about flowers but he can't do it so eventually he instead writes about him trying to write the screenplay. That's what the film is about. Oddly self recursive somehow.

Nicolas Cage, Maryl Streep and Chris Cooper all do a wonderful job in this film. The best I've ever seen of any of them.

Charlie Kaufman has also written the screenplay for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Being John Malkovich and here is a page with a picture of him and there is also a picture on this IMDB.com page.

Movie trailer
IMDB.com page

Just got back from the premiere of The Matrix Revolutions which is the last in the trilogy of the Matrix films.

I don't want to spoil it for anybody but I can say that I was impressed. Lots of computer animated laser guns, flying punches and causality questions. The story is as expected pretty shit but who cares. I didn't go to see the film for the love story or the "We're doomed! ...unless a miracle happens".

One thing is for certain: Don't rent this film on VHS. See it at the cinema with great sound and wide screen.

I particularly enjoyed the final fighting scene. My immediate impression is that Jacky Chan, Let Li et. al. have a lot of catching up to do :)

IMDB
Slashdot (careful some spoilers in the comments)
Pessimistic BBC.co.uk review

Uma Thurman, Quentin Tarantino and martial arts. How can that fail? It can't!

Johan and I went to see Kill Bill vol. 1 tonight and I am positivly surprised. My expectations were high nomatter how much I tried to surpress them.

Just one little warning: Don't see this film if you have fear of blood; animated, sprayed or poured. There's plenty of it and it took some getting used to.

Just like Natuarl Born Killers there's lots of changes in the format of the film, but not as much. There's one particular moment where Uma has killed some people with her sword in black and white and as she stops for a moment and blinks, the film changes to colour again. Splendid! Other than depicting past time, many films who try to be artistic change back and forth between black and white and colour for no particular reason. In this film it really made sense.

Enough said! Go and see the film when you can.

TrailersIMDB page

I just saw One upon a time in Mexico and it think it was pretty shit.

Antonio Banderas with his bloody guitar the whole time and like many others almost invinsible to bullets.

Shooting and blood the whole time. If you really want to see a film with lots of guns and violence but good, you should go and see City of God instead.

And also, if you're a fan of Salma Hayek (like me) you will be disappointed because she's in the film only for a few minutes.

Downloaded Best in Show yesterday and saw it today.

It's a fake documentary (like The Idiots and The Office) about a couple of totally mental american citizens. They're crazy about their dogs and the documentary is all about how they're getting prepared for the big Mayflower Dog Show in Philadelphia.

Made me laugh many times. I kept wondering: all the expertise they must have had must have been from the very same people they mock.

Last week I went to (finally) see City of God at Prince Charles Cinema and it was great. The reviews about the film was all promising and I had my hopes up high; a bit afraid that would ruin it, but it didn't.

This film really takes you "into the picture". I.e. it feels like you're there with them. How they do that I don't know but you feel scarily close to the violence and guns that appear a lot in the film.

A little piece of advise is to stay for the credits after because they show a little extra bit from the real true story.

Official site (shit, but has trailer link)
Pictures