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benjaminmyklebust
Reviews
New York Waiting (2006)
Nice
This movie is nice. I'll still save stronger words for other occasions.
I saw this movie at the Malmö Festival in Malmö Sweden. I was sitting at home, and I was getting bored, and had a look at what was happening - and I saw this film on the program. It was free, and I didn't have anything to lose (except I got wet from the South Swedish rain on my way there).
First, a positive surprise was that Joachim Hedén himself was there, and he introduced the movie with very few words, maybe he thought there were more like me - who didn't really know what they were about to see, and he wanted to keep the virginal feeling.
I was positively surprised: The movie had a simple story that was beautifully told, without Hollywood clichés, with sometimes surprising lines - "you don't say that in American romantic movies".
Some times I feel like familiar faces on the screen subtracts from the movie. The character is brand new to you - so why shouldn't the faces be? Personally I enjoy watching movies with actors I have seen nowhere before, and these have a very short track record. Any insufficiencies they may have in terms of inexperience is made up with this, IMO.
What strikes me the most about this movie though, is its very close resemblance to "Before Sunrise" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112471/) with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy: Boy meets girl for one single day. However, the basic setting for the movie is different, and it does take some different turns, maybe a little bit more complex story. But the scenes, the mood and the style of the movie are extremely similar. Nevertheless, if you like "Before Sunrise" you'll like this one.
Miami Vice (2006)
I blame myself.
By now, I should've known better. Every credible source said it would suck. I was bored to 2 hours watching completely misplaced sex scenes and stupid violent showdowns that were neither fun or credible.
The actors were lost in space, and had no credible character. What's with the police woman who's like so hard-assed, she's all like "Yo-mother*****, my partner's wife is there bleeding in the chair, so I'm gonna be all hotshot, and shoot you in your brain so accurately you won't have time to flick that switch". It's like where did that come from? And who voted for buying a low end crappy camera and having a limp dude shoot the movie? C'mon, it was grainy even in daylight! Be smarter than me. Watch a pot boil instead.
The Edge (1997)
Underrated?
I read someone said this was underrated, personally I was quite surprised to see this has got a 6.5 out of 10. The goofs list could have been so much longer. The movie is about some city people who's in the wild, and clearly, the director has never been out of the city either.
I especially like how, when Hopkins come running to see Baldwin, he just happens to have a fire with like 10 fiercely burning logs, which they hurl into a perfect circle, in the snow, were all the logs continue to burn as a nice flame, equal to all the others, while the one in the middle remains the same.
Also, I think it's funny how Baldwin got waterproof matches at a bar, matches that didn't suffer from a crash in the lake.
And when they walk in a circle, after a couple of days, they actually stumble upon their old fire place. That's a perfect circle too! OK, so the last is not a good, as such, more a sign of a completely stupid screen play.
This also goes for the poor story telling, where Hopkins just happens to see the blood-tainted piece of cloth in the tree just exactly as the bear attacks.
Generally, this is a movie I could have liked, it has good actors, and I could enjoy a good lost-in-the-wild movie, but this just sucks.