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drankula
Reviews
The Puffy Chair (2005)
great road movie
Its a simple but great story a guy and his girlfriend set out to get an old La-Z-boy chair which they found on ebay as a birthday gift to their dad. On their way they pick up the guys brother and the story goes from there. Great acting, great story and fantastic interaction between the three characters. I like this movie because it is deals with real life things like dealing with relationships which go on for ever and ever and other things such as dealing with disappointments. Every body lives their life but people are unhappy sometimes and sometimes you need to do something wacky (like pickup up a chair 2 days driving away) to step out your daily life and see life from a different viewpoint. Its not such a big surprise that road trip movies are usually about change in general. I rarely have seen a movie which expresses such a thing and which one can so easily identify with. its hard to explain why I like this movie in particular but I just like it. I love that Hollywood's attention its slowly moving away from the mainstream movies and steering towards independent movies. This movie fits well with its contemporaries like the garden state, the station agent and sideways although I think its a notch above them. It was definitely my favorite movie of 2006 and I have seen it +10 times and still does not get boring. The soundtrack is great too...although it doesn't have an original soundtrack I found all the songs on the puffy chair myspace page. I hope the DVD comes out quickly so I can put it in my collection of cool movies.
Grizzly Man (2005)
brilliant documentary
Grizzly man tells the crazy story of steve-irwin-wannabe Timothy Treadwell who lived among brown bears in Alaska for 12 seasons before pushing a bear's limits and being attacked and eaten by one of them (as well as his girlfriend). The director Werner herzog has done a brilliant job by showing all the different sides of this story and focusing on certain characters in this story. Especially when certain characters were interviewed and the camera was left rolling for another 20 seconds just to "focus" on that particular person in isolation was really brilliant. To me the story is not about the bears; its about a troubled man fighting its inner demons and desperately seeking for attention. This story could just as well have been about Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison. Timothy believed he was fighting a good cause (protecting bears) but as many people agree, bears are extremely dangerous creatures and to quote my favorite writer; Bill Bryson "The only thing nature requires from us is our absence". In the end he probably did more harm by making bears familiar to man. Anyway there is no right or wrong in this story, I believe protecting wildlife is good but maybe not in the way Timothy did it, especially as it cost him his and his girlfriends life.
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
brilliant movie basically its only about coffee and sigarettes but man what movie
I really like this movie. There is no real storyline but man the conversations people have when enjoying coffee and cigarettes..... they are brilliant. I liked every story and especially some characters are really great (Iggy pop). It is difficult for me to explain what I like about it but you have to see for yourself I guess. Somehow it has the same kind of humor as Seinfeld (there is no storyline) the movie focuses on somewhat pointless but very funny conversations.
The ingredients are so simple (coffee and cigarettes) and the result is really stunning. The only thing thats striking about the conversations is that some mind games are being played between the actors. Especially the story between two guys who meet up after a couple of years.
Simon (2004)
controversial topics do not make a good movie
Some bad acting and bad casting of actors. Basically the movie is okay promoting and discussing some of the typical dutch controversial topics such as gay marriage, euthanasia, soft drugs.
But controversial topics are not enough to make a good movie.
The movie starts high paced introducing all characters of which some are very cool especially the character simon. But after 45 minutes it slows down and the movie becomes a bit boring then.
The girl that was cast as the daughter of simon is not very convincing, she is supposed to be 18 but looks like 30 and talks like a 12 year old. Some character such as the boyfriend of the daughter of simon do not add anything to the whole story.