Grade Scale
- A+: Never say never
- A: A masterpiece
- A-: A near-masterpiece
- B+: Very good movie
- B: Good movie but some minor flaws
- B-: Pretty good but some flaws
- C+: Slightly above average
- C: Average
- C-: Mediocre
- D: Bad movie!!!
- F: Atrocious, avoid at all cost!
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|  By Red | 
Directed by Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon is a mystery-drama that is based in a small village in Germany just before the outbreak of World War I. Like many other reviewers have, I would somewhat advise to see this movie without knowing too much about it. All you need to know is that this is probably an instant classic in my book, and knowing too much about the story would deprive you of the full effect the first viewing should have on the viewer.
The film follows the events taking place in the village of Eichwald, as the story is being narrated by the village school teacher. Eichwald is a very small village, everybody is under the rule of the Baron. The Baron employs over half the village as farmers, and lives what is apparently a very relaxed life with his wife and his three children. Along with the Baron, the town is run by the Pastor, the doctor, the school teacher, and the Steward. Nameless they remain, powerful figures they are among the town. The film begins with the doctor being involved in a terrible accident, in which someone among the village tripped the doctor and his horse by tying wire in between the two trees. While the doctor is sent to a hospital in a nearby town, the question of who did it still remains in doubt. What follows is a series of attacks from an unknown culprit, and nobody seem to connect any of the attacks into a single motive.
Along the way, we learn much about the villagers and everyday life in the early 20th century. Work is hard, times are rough, and the parents are some of the strictest guardians you will see on film. Most of the discipline comes from the Pastor, who doesn’t hesitate to whip his own children with a cane for being late to dinner. Religion is enforced to a high degree, even to a point as to where the movie gets it’s name from. As a sign of purity and innocence, the Pastor forces children of have strayed away from such values to wear a white ribbon on their arm and as a hair piece. This is supposed to give them a constant reminder of how they should act, remembering the ideals that their father has implemented in them. With this, Haneke is able to deliver certain themes to the movie, some that you won’t even realize that are there until the film is over. This is a theme that I wish I could elaborate more on, because it offers up such a great conversation starter, but I don’t want to ruin this movie for you in any possible way. Good thing people are allowed to comment on such posts, eh?
While the film is narrated by the school teacher, much of the film takes place away from the teacher. For most of his screen time, he is in a love story with a much younger girl that works as a sitter for the Baron. This love is put to the test after the girl is unfairly fired by the Baron, and she is forced to move back home in another village. When he’s not traveling to visit her, he begins to try and piece together the series of attacks that have plagued the town as of late. Nobody knows anything though, and hardly anybody trusts each other. As we learn more about the different villagers, it often leaves us in shock to learn of the events that take place within their own homes. After the entire viewing, one starts to realize exactly how these horrible attacks could possibly be taking place in such a small village. Like I said before, this movie brings up a good number of themes that stem from a number of places, most of all religion and politics. While the movie is never really resolved, one can put together the pieces and come up with a wide variety of opinions.
Shot in black and white, the movie is visually stunning. If I had popped this movie in the DVD player without reading when it was made, I would’ve sworn on my life that it was made no later 1960. Often using long single shots, this film paints the scene with such realism you can’t help but just sit back and admire what you are watching. DP Christian Berger is up for an Oscar here in two days, and this small foreign flick could very easily steal that award away from the giant blue aliens. Converting the footage to black and white was the absolute best idea that Haneke could have had for this film. One could even go as far as comparing the coloring of the film to some of the themes that take place within the film. Along with the camera work, the acting is spot on with every character. Not a single beat is missed with any of the casting, even with the children. It’s rumored that over 7,000 children were brought in and auditioned for these roles, and they were able to bring in the very best of the bunch. To pick out a single performance that you liked more than others is nearly impossible.
A visual treat, The White Ribbon is a movie that will not only be a spectacle for you to glare at, but also a film that will work your mind just as much as it delights your eyes. This is a classic in the making, and couldn’t get a higher recommendation from me.
A+
Notes: 144 minutes. Rated R for some disturbing content involving violence and sexuality. Seen in German with English subtitles.
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 9.8/10 (4 votes cast)
| By Castor |
Cache (US: Hidden) is a critically acclaimed mystery thriller directed by Austrian director Michael Haneke and starring French actors Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. Georges Laurent (Auteuil) is a successful TV host of a book-club type show while his wife Anne (Binoche) works for a book publisher. They have a 12-yr old son and seemingly happily live in a cozy book-lined upscale apartment. The obviously well-to-do family starts receiving sinister videotapes of themselves and are perplexed by the meaning of those. Someone is watching them and they don’t know why. The threat slowly grows as the Laurent go through their daily lives. One day, the family starts receiving disturbing drawings of blood coming out a child’s mouth.
Haneke builds up the suspense patiently and methodically. The Laurent continue to live their life but it progressively starts to take a toll on them. Georges and Anne starts having fights because she thinks he knows something that she doesn’t know. He has a hunch about who is sending those tapes and doesn’t want to tell her. The viewer knows as little as the couple itself so we become detectives trying to solve this creepy riddle. Even as the plot unfolds it never becomes clear who is actually tormenting the Laurent. The film is ultimately a subtle political commentary on responsibility (here France toward Algeria) for past and present action. Let’s just say that Laurent did something bad to someone else when he was only a 6-yr old kid and willfully let himself off the hook because he was so young after all. However, this is now coming back to haunt him decades later.
Haneke intentionally leaves the ending open-ended and highly open for interpretation with many questions left unanswered. Some viewers will not mind, I personally felt I needed to know who sent those tapes but only because of that uncomfortable feeling of personal violation and not knowing who did it.
The cast performs on a high level. Daniel Auteuil slowly evolves from a smug and slightly blazed character at the start of the movie to a more introspective character who can lose his temper quickly. Juliette Binoche gave a strong performance as well in a supporting role. The movie features no musical score which gives it a quiet and sinister atmosphere.
A disturbing, unsettling and haunting psychological thriller that plays it close to the vest. Highly recommended especially if you like Hitchcock.
B+
Notes: R-rated for strong violence, 117 minutes
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 9.3/10 (3 votes cast)
| By Castor |
Having a fervent fascination for time travel stories, my quest to find a decent time-traveling movie has been met mostly with … nothing. Where are the time-traveling movies Hollywood? Yes, there was the moving The Time Traveler’s Wife back in August but it was more of a romance movie with less emphasis on the sci-fi and then after that, we basically have to go back to The Butterfly Effect (2004) and Donnie Darko (2001) for some decent time-travel brainstorming. It is thus needless to say that I was giddy to discover Timecrimes (Los Cronocrimenes), a Spanish sci-fi thriller directed by Nacho Vigalondo.
 Look honey! A topless babe over there! The movie has a simple plot and it starts innocuously as Héctor (Karra Elejalde), a paunchy middle-aged man, is sitting on a lawn chair outside his mansion and scanning the countryside with his binocular. He glimpses a beautiful woman taking her top off in the woods behind his house and he feels the urge to go investigate as any faithful middle-aged husband would. When he gets to that location, he is stunned to see the woman (Bárbara Goenaga) laying unconscious on the ground and completely naked. As he approaches her, he is suddenly stabbed in the arm and he runs away in terror. Thinking that he is pursued by some psycho in the middle of the woods, he ends up stumbling into a time-traveling machine which brings him back a couple hours in the past. To his despair, there is now two versions of himself. Will he be able to fix this screw-up or will he only make it worse?
The movie touches on many themes common to time-travel stories such as fate/free will and the universal desire to go back in the past and fix some things up. Unlike most time-travel movies, there is no obvious fallacy to Héctor’s temporal adventures. There is only four characters in the movie. Karra Elejalde gives a solid performance as Héctor and his character changes subtly throughout the movie as the plot unfolds. We also get good performances out of Candela Fernández who plays Héctor’s wife, Bárbara Goenaga who is… gorgeous, and Nacho Vigalondo himself who plays the scientist responsible for getting Héctor in his predicament (or so you think).
An entertaining low-budget time travel movie
B+
Note: R-Rated for some nudity and violence
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 8.0/10 (3 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 “Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone.”
Oldboy, directed by highly acclaimed director Park Chan-wook, is the second part of the Vengeance trilogy which I’m watching in reverse order. Oldboy follows the story of Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi), who is kidnapped and locked in a cell without any explanation. No one will tell him why he is held captive, or when he will be released. He soon learns, on TV, that his wife was murdered and that he is the main suspect. He very slowly adapts to his new environment by plotting his vengeance, writing down the names of all the people he may have wronged, practicing martial arts against a wall, and digging a tunnel with a chopstick. Fifteen years later, he is suddenly released with money, clothes and a cellphone. As he attempts to make sense of why someone would do such thing to him, he finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy masterminded by the same person who locked him up fifteen years ago. His quest for revenge is complicated when he is given five days to figure out why he was subjected to this punishment.
This is a revenge fantasy, alright, but nothing like your bloated low-grade action movies such as The Punisher for example. The plot is complex and slow-building but contains several mind-blowing twists which are certain to keep you thinking long afterward. The conclusion is shocking and revolting and I’m sure some people hate/will hate the movie for it. Strong performances are given by the cast. Min-sik Choi is intense and nearly over-the-top but it works wonderfully in the world of Oldboy while Yu Ji-tae plays Lee Woo-jin the calm, collected and cunning bad guy (but is he?) much like a Christian Bale would if it was a Hollywood movie. Kang Hye-jeong plays the love interest of our main character in an understated and self-effacing manner. The movie is stylishly and breathtakingly shot giving the movie a gritty and sometime surreal feel while the musical score complements the action on the screen well.
Mixing a masterful plot-line, a twisted and disturbing ending, world-class acting, direction and cinematography, Oldboy is a gift from the movie gods!
A-
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 8.8/10 (12 votes cast)
| By Castor |
After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) is a beautifully crafted Danish drama directed by Susanne Bier which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. I want to say right away that I absolutely loved this movie. Sometimes, some really good movies go unnoticed and it always is a great feeling to discover them a few years later. After the Wedding is a satisfying torrent of emotions best approached by knowing as little as possible before you watch it. It would be best if you don’t read the rest of the review if you intend to watch this movie. I tried not to reveal the major plot twists and it may make the movie and the review less appealing than it should be but so be it.
 Sidse Babett Knudsen and Mads Mikkelsen
As the movie starts, we meet our main character Jacob Pederson (Mads Mikkelsen) passing out food to homeless children in the streets of Mumbai, India. He manages a small orphanage and is in his element there more particularly because of Pramod (Neeral Muchandani), a young boy he has cared for since he was an infant. Unfortunately, he receives word that his orphanage is running out of funds and that he must return to Denmark because a wealthy man, Jørgen Hannson (Rolf Lassgard) is considering making a large donation and requested to meet him in person. Jacob promises Pramod he will be back for his birthday in 8 days and reluctantly hops on a plane back to Denmark where he hasn’t set foot in 20 years. When Jacob gets there, Jørgen is oddly uninterested with what Jacob has to say but invites him to his daughter wedding which is set for the next day so they get to know more about each other. Jacob comes to the wedding and runs into the former love of his life who happens to be Jørgen’s beautiful wife, Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen). I know what you are thinking and I can tell you right now, it’s NOT what you think or expect. It’s much much more interesting than what appears to be a soap opera-like plot and I will not reveal more about the story so as to not spoil anything.
While your average Hollywood director would have churned out a soap opera with cheesy, telegraphed, and commonly seen plot twists as well as unrealistic human behavior and dialogue. Director Susanne Bier and and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen play it close to the vest and the numerous revelations and plot twists come with powerful and devastating effects that ring true to life. The dialogue is rich and feels real. The characters of the movie are vivid, complex, and evolve subtly from our initial perception of them (just like in real life!) thanks to outstanding performances from the entire cast. Mads Mikkelsen, whom you may recognize as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale does a great job playing an understated character. Jacob doesn’t have an easy smile, and even though he is a dedi,cated humanitarian worker, his past may not be as saintly. It’s hard to take your eyes off the stunningly beautiful Sidse Babett Knudsen who steals the spotlight in the scenes she is in and Bier takes advantage of that by repeatedly inserting close-ups of her eyes for non-verbal cues. When she sees Jacob at the wedding for the first time in 20 years, she can’t believe her eyes and we know it without any dialogue or tantrum (or worse, voice over…), just a stare or two from her are enough to cue us in. That’s movie making at its best! Not everything needs to spelled out as if people are complete retards, we get it! Ok Hollywood?
It’s Rolf Lassgard however who gives the highlight performance of the film. His Jørgen is the complete opposite of Jacob: He first appears as a fat, jovial, and pompous family man but he also has a manipulative streak when it comes to business. Jørgen is a bit threatening, has a drinking problem and initially appears to be the “bad guy” of the movie but is he really? He must want something in return for his money and he must be up to no good? But is he? Those are some of the nagging questions that the viewer will try to answer throughout the first hour of the movie. Best of all, the movie is not only about revelations and secrets but also about what the characters will do once the skeletons have come out of the closet. The movie features some welcome social commentary and asks some important questions among which does a humanitarian cause needs the man or the money? The cinematography is luminous with bright sunny locations and a beautiful mansion used as sets for the movie. Bier choose to not use any artificial lighting and it only increases the realistic feel of the movie.
A mature, harrowing, and humanistic drama elevated by brilliant direction and performances skillfully extracted by Susanne Bier. It’s sad because the very vast majority of people will never see this movie for themselves even the few who read this review.
A-
Note: Have some Kleenex handy
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 8.5/10 (2 votes cast)
| By Castor |
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) is an Austrian-German war drama based on the true story of Operation Bernhard, the Nazi’s’ plan to counterfeit the English Pound and US Dollar to flood the market with fake notes and cause a monetary collapse. The movie won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008.
The Counterfeiters follows the story of Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a masterful currency and official document counterfeiter. He is arrested in 1936 by Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow) and immediately sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, being both Jewish and a criminal. A few years later with World War II fully underway, he is transferred to Sachsenhausen, another concentration camp where he meets Herzog again. The highly charismatic Herzog, now a high-ranking German officer recruited Sorowitsch and a group of other “artists” for Operation Bernhard, a plan to counterfeit the British Pound and later on, the US Dollar in an attempt to devaluate the currencies of Nazi Germany’s enemies. Aside from having to survive living in a concentration camp, Sorowitsch and his helpers are faced with colossal morale dilemmas as their skills are helping the Nazis’ war effort: They must weight the value of their life and those of the inmates around them with the damage they are doing on a very large scale by helping the Germans prolong or win the war. Your life is at the hands of madmen and you must help them stay in position to oppress you and countless others to survive. That’s the moral dilemma that this movie is focusing on.
I must absolutely say that I was captivated by this movie. First of all, the main character of the movie is unlike others. He is soft-spoken, cunning and out for himself. “I’m me, and the others are the others,” he says. Risking his life for a noble cause is not something that he is all too willing to do and having the challenge of cracking the dollar mesmerizes him. The movie successfully conveys the constant terror and oppression of living in a concentration camp while actually showing pretty much none of it: That’s what I call fine movie-making. Even though, Sorowitsch and his helpers had an infinitely better life than any other prisoner outside their relatively sheltered barracks, they still were under the constant threat of death, seeing constant humiliation and being treated like dirt as well as feeling the shame of receiving preferential treatment while hundreds of Jews just behind a thin wall were living in inhumane conditions.
The performance from the cast is outstanding, starting with Karl Markovics who gives an understated but powerful performance very similar to the one from Ulrich Mühe in The Lives of Others. August Diehl who plays Adolf Burger (the movie is based on his memoir) does a solid job as the idealist who does everything he can to sabotage the operation, putting everyone in mortal danger. Devid Striesow also puts up a great performance as the charismatic Herzog who is basically the mirror image of Sorowitsch, a cunning but reasonable man only looking to save his own skin as the war is coming to an end. The cinematography is solid with the movie shot for the most part with hand-held cameras. The musical soundtrack is mostly composed of classical tango and operas used with great effect.
A thrilling, suspenseful and moving film with a performance for the ages from Karl Markovics.
A
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 8.5/10 (2 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a South Korean movie directed by highly acclaimed movie-maker Park Chan-Wook, known as “the Quentin Tarantino from South Korea”, and is the third part in his vengeance trilogy comprising Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), and Oldboy (2003) which I haven’t seen yet. The plot is very simple: A 34-yr old woman, Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young Ae) is recently released from prison where she spent 13 years for the murder of a boy. Thing is she did not commit the crime and she has spent all this time to methodically plot her revenge against the man who has committed the crime. She gets a job at a bakery, reconnects with former prison mates, finds her daughter and makes it look like she is a good girl who has all but rehabilitated for the crime she did not commit but this is all part of her plan for revenge. What she uncover about the man however, is so monstrous that her own revenge doesn’t not seem fitting to the heinous crimes he has committed… Does the end justifies the means?
The first hour of the movie unfolds progressively as our main character is developed, we get numerous flashbacks of Geum-ja’s time in prison and it takes a little while to grasp what exactly is going on in the movie. The second hour overflowing emotions are the complete opposite of the mostly apathetic first half and deals with her revenge on the man who destroyed her life. This is NOT an action movie. Geum-ja doesn’t go on a rampage killing a few dozen people and blowing up cars before a climatic death-dealing movie-ending sequence. I just wanted to make that clear. Aside from the actual story, what sets this movie apart is the stunning photography which told the story just as much as the characters of the movie did. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is visually gorgeous and stylish and the musical score is solid and fitting to the atmosphere of the film. Lovely Lee Young Ae plays the main character solidly, giving her depth and a feeling of sadness because of the things she has been forced to do while Choi Min-sik plays the heinous English schoolteacher masterfully.
Give your average Hollywood director a script like the one for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and you get monstercrapulous movies like Hitman or The Punisher. Get it into the hands of a genius director like Park Chan-Wook and you get a complex study of the notion of revenge and its consequence in a mesmerizing albeit shocking silver screen vehicle.
B+
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 7.5/10 (2 votes cast)
| By Castor |
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away is a wonderful Japanese animation movie which received wildly positive critical acclaim and was the first to win an Academy Award ever. This movie is the highest grossing movie ever in Japan to this date.
Spirited Away is a children fantasy for children and adults alike. Kids would love the movie too but they would not be able to fully comprehend the movie underlying themes. The world of Spirited Away is simply magical and fantastical. The movie starts with 10-yr old girl, Chihiro (Daveigh Chase), who is whining in the backseat of her parent’s car as they are driving to their new home in a new town. On the way there, they get lost and find themselves on a strange forested pathway which the father decides to take as a shortcut. The road, however, comes to an end at a cul-de-sac and what appears to be an abandoned theme park. The curious father decides to take his family for a visit and they wander into a tunnel and explore the park. The family stumbles onto a strangely unoccupied food-stand full of enticing dishes and soon enough, the parents are gorging themselves with everything they can get their hands on. Chihiro, in the meantime is exploring the strange park and encounters a boy who warns her to go back and leave the place before it gets dark. Terrified, she hurriedly returns to her parents but finds that they have literally turned into pigs! She also realize it is now dark and the way she came from is gone and she is trapped in that mysterious place. She is told by the boy that she must get a job at the bathhouse so she is not turned into an animal by the evil witch who controls the park and hence not be able to free her parents. Will young fearful Chihiro be able to surmount the numerous obstacles in front of her and turn her parents back into humans?
The movie is wonderfully drawn, this is not your 3D computer garbage we usually get in US animation movies but the traditional hand-drawn animation technique. Miyazaki was able to craft a fantastical and mystical world full of mysteries. A living, breathing world that has so much more depth and details than your average Disney movie. The musical score is top-notch and runs for most of the movie very discreetly. The movie’s characters are strange, original and likable. Chihiro is a whiny, fearful, self-centered little girl at the beginning of the movie but she progressively matures to become a sensible, courageous and unselfish person by the end of her journey. She is separated from everything she knows (the real world) and must fend for herself and find her way back to the world she came from. The supporting characters are well-developed, complex and interesting. There is numerous themes in this movie, among which greed figures prominently. The parents eat the food at the food stand even though no one is around and are turned into pigs. Yubaba, the witch, is constantly seen counting gold clusters and precious stones. The inhabitants of the bathhouse are mesmerized by the sight of gold. All of this in stark contrast with the main character’s innocence and naiveness. The movie also plays on some of our childhood fantasy. Who hasn’t dreamed, as a child, of a hidden and fantastic world that’s right next to our world which is inaccessible unless you find a secret “gate” to it? (ok maybe only me lol)
An enchanting masterpiece of story-telling for children and adults alike. Better than any Disney or Pixar movie you will ever see and easily one of the best animation ever made. I loved it and you will too!
A
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 9.8/10 (5 votes cast)
| By Castor |
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a movie adapted from the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara which is based on the true story of the author’s mother and two other mixed-race aboriginal girl running away from the Moore River Native Settlement in 1931 to reunite with their families.They did that because the Australian government had a policy in place that required “half-caste” children to be taken away from their families and placed in government training facilities such as Moore River to be trained as servants up until freaking 1970!
Set in Australia in the 1931, the movie follows the true story of Molly Craig who, along with two younger children, escaped from Moore River and walked 1,500 miles along a fence to return to their home while escaping the authorities and an aboriginal tracker (David Gulpilil). The movie features little dialogue and most of the story is told visually but this is done masterfully. Directed by Phillip Noyce, the movie is visually stunning with great shots of the Australian outback and carried by the plight of the three children played by unknown actresses Evelyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, and Laura Monaghan. Noyce eeks out beautiful performances from them which are subtle and heart-breaking. Kenneth Branagh does a strong job as Mr. Neville, the “protector” of Western Australian Aborigines, by not making him a caricature.
This movie sheds a light on a dark period of Australian history which I must admit, I was completely unaware of until I saw this movie. Rabbit-Proof Fence is a beautiful and haunting story of determination and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity. This movie has received very little attention despite widespread critical acclaim. Spread the word people!
A-
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 8.0/10 (2 votes cast)
| By Castor |
 I heard some great things about Battle Royale among which Quentin Tarantino named it his favorite movie since 1992 and it has become a full-blown cult movie so I decided to give this a try. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is set in a near-futuristic dystopian Japan where the economy is doing poorly and teenage delinquency is out of control. To remedy this situation, the Japanese government authorized a special game through the BR Act. A randomly chosed class of junior high school students is sent to a deserted island and forced to play a lethal survival game. The rules of this game are fairly simple: The students have a detonating necklace around their neck. They have three days to kill everyone else and be the only one left or all the necklaces will be detonated. The necklaces will also be detonated if the children wander into “danger zones” or try to get off the island. Each of the students receive a bag with some survival supplies and a random weapon which can range from a machine gun to a pair of binocular.
Needless to say the body count incrementally goes up to insanely high numbers. It’s interesting to see how the director explored the dilemma at work here. Some students immediately turn against each other while others team up for survival. Performance-wise, the teen actors did a great job. Battle Royale is truly unique in a way because you will never see a movie like this being made in the US. The violence is way over the top and you would never see a movie about children pitted against each other in life or death situation in our politically-correct world and given the number of school shooting we have seen the last few years… There is some truly sick but hilarious moments in this movie like the video presentation where a lady gayly presents the rules of the game to the stunned and terrified group of kids who just saw one of their classmate get his head blown off for a necklace demonstration.
Kill or be killed! Battle Royale is a kick ass movie!
A
Note: Extreme violence
VN:F [1.8.5_1061] Rating: 9.2/10 (6 votes cast)
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