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Army of One (2020)
A very badly written silly movie.
There is so much wrong with this movie, where to start? Scripts and acting are awful, because there's really no realistic believable story. If a man had written the script, one might suspect that this fever dream of a revenge story comes from a deep seated inferiority complex. I am not sure that a female heroine does anyone any good if everything she does feels like it's coming from a bad comic book. Angry eye slits, kaboom, trash dialog, and fight sequences so out of touch with reality, it's painful. Typically, the handgun toting female hero (who beats an entire clan of hardy dumb-strong man-boys) shoots and kills every rifle carrying hick with single shots over long distances, while the rifle carrying guys have the timing on her and the distance in their favor. But no, she gets them first. Pathetic. If you want to make a fantasy movie, then dress them up as fairies. And don't get me started on fires in the woods at night to roast a fish, in the clan's home territory. Mosquitos? Nope.
The Spiral Road (1962)
Colonial hypocrisy, bad screen writing, wooden characters
We stumbled into this DVD late at night to see another "Rock Hudson" movie. Surprised to see so many big stars, above all Burl Ives, we hung on. The first signs of trouble were the disjointed wooden statements delivered by the characters, the colonial officials, the grumpy yet wise comments of the old jungle doctor Jansen, the searching questions of the bright young good looking doctor Drager. Psychological character development was limited to ping pong ball like arguments hit back and forth between protagonists. The movie narrative itself jumped over location and time like the characters were beamed into far out places by chief engineer Scotty on starship Enterprise. Sometimes the uniforms and outfits were sweat soaked, sometimes even after strenuous jungle hikes one could see not a drop of sweat and perfect ironed creases. What became more and more bothersome was the innocently displayed colonial mindset of the script, all smothered in sweet Christian concepts of "loving the savages" even against their will. All the natives, including the dwarf like sidekick Stegomyia, are portrayed like stoic or foolish subhumans. Of course the evil voodoo witch Burudi was played by a European actor in black face, or as in this case "brown face". Even the local beauty who simply walks into the Dr. Drager's tent, he who suddenly has become the newly-wed selfish God doubter, even she is nothing but a tool in the movie, to make a statement, without having any human qualities. She might as well have been gift wrapped with a card around her neck "here, take me, I am your jungle play thing". Dr. Drager 'notices' her, files her away mentally under "available female" and then takes her a week later or so, and tells his wife about it just as nonchalantly. When he's finally alone out in the old railroad car in the jungle, he suddenly has lost all his brain powers and acts in the midst of a hostile jungle and the mysterious appearances of the witch man and his followers as if he's in the safety of his living room back home in Holland. Lured into the jungle and then abandoned by the native voodoo leader, he grows a long full beard either in days while stumbling around in circles, or, if it took him "real time" to grow that beard he must have been out there in the jungle for at least 6 months. We don't know how he feeds himself, how and when he sleeps, because the natives are all around. At some point a sly native steals his rifle when Drager falls into exhausted sleep( 6 months old beard, how come the natives didn't steal the rifle sooner, or did he not sleep for 6 months?). And miraculously, the western self made man, who is brought to the verge of insanity, re-discovers God right about when the white colonial search party (no sweat stains on shirts)finds him, so he can collapse on his knees and exclaim as a testimony in everybody's presence "thank you, oh God". Equally miraculously his wife Els shows up in the rotting moldy rail road car (that is a 10 day journey away from the nearest settlement) to help him through his feverish nightmares on the way to recovery. The movie script is, if nothing else, manipulative, planting false clues (in the early "conversations" on world views) only to jerk you around to the real message of the movie. In a less gentle appraisal, the movie comes across as sleazy, arrogant, stilted, pompous and totally unbelievable. Yes it was fun to hear Burl Ives' burly character statements, but even they wear thin after a while. A thoroughly disappointing movie that leaves one with a bad taste in the mouth.
Hostel (2005)
It's not the "Hostel" that is bad, it's the movie that is bad
I liked an earlier comment "Bad things happen to bad people".
If you would like to understand better why Americans are not very welcome around the world (unless their capture and pending torture jacks up the price, i.e. value of them), this is a great example. Send some creepy bratty American college boys on a Europe tour. Have them cuss and swear and using the F-word in every third sentence (even when they are pleading for their very life). Have them treat anybody with disrespect and loathing, including the girls they want to have sex with. Oh, I forgot the absolutely boring fake teenage sex parties in a public youth hostel. You put all that into a movie, and the result is predictable. GIGO: garbage in = garbage out.
I wonder if anyone could show me what the point of such a movie would be? It can't have been an interest in "horror". Nothing in this movie was scary, just plain repulsive, because it was done so badly. The built-up toward the gruesome scenes is plainly annoying. These college boys are immature brats, rude and anything but likable. Who cares what happens to them?
We get a few hints of what lies ahead when they meet a strange "meat lover" in their train compartment. Whom they again meet later, in the dungeons of some eastern country, of course, where unspeakable evil things can happen.
It would have been, -maybe-, an interesting horror movie if we had learned what really motivates those rich patrons, failed / wannabe surgeons, and other American cash paying thrill seekers. But those characters are mere shells of types, shallow and totally uninteresting. We don't even get the feeling that they are really getting a "kick" out of the horrid stuff they are doing to their victims, it's all so mechanical. And that hunchbacked dungeon clean up maid, who incinerates the remains of victims... what a sorry hoot! No Hannibal Lecter ("Silence of the Lambs") here anywhere. No fear of looming danger like in "Aliens". No identification with any of the characters. Just dull disgust with a wannabe horror movie. Movie making for two reasons: gratuitous violence without a plot and box office revenues.
Do they give out awards for that?
Lola rennt (1998)
The Story lies in the Details
I have seen the movie several times, and each time I find new details and nuances that add to the story and the movies as an audiovisual delight. Friends of mine introduced me to the sound track at first on a high quality stereo system. It was amazing. I went home and ordered the CD. I am no great fan of techno music but that first track made me hold my breath because of its beauty. It felt like sitting in a cathedral and listening to a simple choral. I know, awkward comparison, but...
A few observations of my own.
Lola's first "run" reveals that her father believes she is not his biological daughter, calls her a "cuckoos egg". And it's quite possible, since we see her mom in all 3 "runs" talking on the phone with someone other than her husband. Lola is devastated. All three "runs" feature the bank security guard, trying to calm down Lola, giving her support. Every time they have intense eye contact, some silent understanding. He once even greets her with "Da bist du ja, Liebling" ("there you are, darling"). Quite strange for a bank employee to call his boss' daughter that, don't you think? We also see early on that he might have a heart condition.
In the last story segment, we see the guard again, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Lola caught a ride, for a change, to her meeting destination with Manni. Miraculously, the guard's heart condition improves as his hand reaches toward Lola's. The medic, at first annoyed ("what the heck are you doing here?") is puzzled. Lola's answer to his question, as she reaches for the guard's hand is: "Ich gehoer zu ihm." Very important, I think. Call me silly, but somehow I have this feeling that he might be her illegitimate father. As bank employee he might well have had contact with Lola's mother, and even time to have an affair with her, considering the workaholic dad being gone so much.
"Ich gehoer zu ihm" is badly translated in the subtitles as "I'll stay with him" while the German would better translate into "I belong to him." And that is something Lola could well have realized after her dad abandoned her with the accusation of being a cuckoo's egg.
The guard is also in the beginning of the movie quoting famous soccer coach Sepp Herberger's "the ball is round". It's in the league with Yogi Berra's famous word creations. The ball is round meant for Herberger, that anything can happen as long as the game is on. Expect the unexpected. Since this is a movie that wants the viewer to "think" about possibilities, why not go all the way?
Excalibur (1981)
A strange mix of bad acting, murky fantasy, disconnected narrative, and cutesy whims
Sorry to say it right from the start: this movie is not just a disappointment, it simply turned me off, and I gave it the benefit of the doubt by watching it 3 times over the span of 10 years. Reaction: the same, every time. As much as I like "knights-in-shining-armor" movies and fantasy films, there has to be a certain narrative logic to the stories and a certain reality to the characters. Not to mention likability.
The knights run around in their heavy duty armor (60-80 pounds plus in reality) as if they wear them as business suits to the office (and don't even take them off in the bedroom). The plate metal armor is so extravagant that even the richest of rich in the late middle ages couldn't have afforded more than one "outfit". And that was the only time, knights' armor became so elaborate. King Arthur mythology places him in the early 6th century, weapons technology was that of the dark ages, not that of the early Renaissance. Why not add some early handguns or canon to the movie, just for effect, because any sense of historicity obviously did not matter in this movie. (Did it even occur to the director?)
The dance one female performed in the knight's hall early in the movie could have been inspired by Martha Graham and the modern dance movement. Fight scenes in creeks, moats and ponds, can you imagine? Wearing all that armor, which incidentally rusts easily, and wading into pools of water to fight for your life? Fake celtic music that drifts off into modern harmonies at a whim, Wagner opera pieces when the director tries to instill serenity into the scenes and audiences, because the acting sure doesn't accomplish that. Helen Mirren, an accomplished actress, is made to float around Merlin like an evil witch wind up toy, rather than a real person. Merlin himself makes his contribution to the story as seer, wise man, conspirator and occasional wise crack commentator, even court jester. (I take Gandalf the "White Wizard" and his twinkling eyes any day over this joke of a wizard's character. There, I did it: I mentioned LotR, and I really wanted to avoid that).
Lancelot appears out of nowhere, and when he is indisposed, Percival appears out of the director's magic hat. Where did they come from, what led them to King Arthur?
In conclusion, this movie does not do justice to the story, the mythology of King Arthur and his roundtable, movie storytelling in general, and the many great actors that happened to appear in this sad version of a great story of western culture (Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, and many more).