Piranha 3DD (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: John Gulager (Feast 1-3)
	Actors: Danielle Panabaker, Ving Rhames, David Hasselhoff (Baywatch TV-series, Dodgeball)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 30.01.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The Big Wet is a large water park that will open in a few days. Some people disappear and rumors start to spread about seeings of the same Piranhas as one year before in Lake Victoria (from Piranha 3D).
Review: I was quite pleased by the first movie Piranha 3D, remake of the 80's classic by Joe Dante. The French director Alexandre Aja did a good job, there were some good actors, loads of shameless fun and you could feel a cool atmosphere. For this sequel it looks like all cast and crew changed, except for useless cameos by Ving Rhames and the genial Christopher Lloyd. Apparently the producers tried to copy the recipe of the first movie but without understanding the humour and the references, and more importantly without talent. The story doesn't make sense, the characters are overly caricatural, the editing is confused and the music simply awful. There are a few good ideas to save that honor the spirit of the first movie or of the title (double Ds!): the waterside strip bar (underused), the second degree appearance by David Hasselhoff (overused), the guy forced to slice his own penis to detach a piranha from it. Note that I own the 3D version of the movie but I can only watch it in 2D for the moment. Many effects are clearly aimed at producing a strong 3D effect, so the movie really feels empty during those scenes. Watching the movie in 3D would probably be more entertaining but wouldn't improve its quality. It reminds me a lot of Shark Night 3D to which I gave the same rating.
Rating: 2 /10

Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass (1999)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1999
	Director: Klaus Krämer
	Actors: Boris Aljinovic, Jürgen Tarrach, Claudia Michelsen
	Country: D
	Genre: Black comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 26.01.2014, DVD
Synopsis: After a party with his best friends, Max and Rike, the architect Paul finds his girlfriend dead in the living room. What happened? Did he kill her?
Review: I got the scenario of the movie from a friend and found it really good. Thanks Eric! There are many actors and sceneries that I immediately recognized or actually imagined exactly like that.  The story is still great. Very very good black humour all along the movie. Problem is the directing and cut. That gives sometimes the impression, it has been done by a group of friends, but without a clear nor artistic concept. The directing tends to German series, where the directing is seldom good. Thus cheap with some luxus, straight with crazy humour. There are a couple of actors that are also very good, Paul (Boris Aljinovic) and the strange neighbour Rüdiger (Edgar Selge).
Rating: 6 /10

Die Vermessung der Welt (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Detlev Buck
	Actors: Albrecht Schuch, Florian David Fitz, Jérémy Capone, Vicky Krieps
	Country: D
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 25.01.2014, DVD
Synopsis: Germany in the early 19th century. "Die Vermessung der Welt" follows the two brilliant scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss on their life paths, both linked to measuring the Earth.
Review: Very good movie. First to dare telling the live of scientists with indeed relatively lots of science. Very unusual and thus great. The scientific story is well-known, but all the side stories taken from the bookmake it very interesting because it gives a motor to their scientific motivation, exactly as artists have their muses, the movie shows how Humboldt and Gauss had muses in their best friend and wife respectively.  The scenery is often a bit too straight for the sinuous stories being told. The acting is a bit exagerated for Humboldt and the other Preussians but very good for Gauss and for the friend of Humboldt, Aimé Bonpland. Some clichés, about French people, Preussians, dirty kings, enhance the authenticity of the movie as none of these is told with disregard.
Rating: 7 /10 The cover of the book looks also very good and gives a better idea about the content than the movie poster. I fucking love science!

Percy Jackson: Sea of monsters (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Thor Freudenthal
	Actors: Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 22.01.2014, DVD
Synopsis: In order to restore their dying safe haven, the son of Poseidon and his friends embark on a quest to the Sea of Monsters to find the mythical Golden Fleece.
Review: The story is not as full of new characters and mythologies as the first episode Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but has a couple of very good ideas. The directing is then a bit chaotic. I like to have different types of scenery and graphical esthetic in one movie and Freudenthal manages to do it. But the story line seems sometime very chaotic, very long scenes in the Sea of Monsters, very short scenes with people talking, in particular with Clarissa. Well, as a fan of mythologies, I had to watch it, but seing it more rationally, it is quite average.  The SFX are not so good except still the amazing centaurs and the cyclopes. The green screen SFX are too obvious and done as in the 90s with rough image connections. The picture was not so well thought except for the "sharks" and in the cave of the cyclope. The acting of the semi-gods is basic, even if I like the acting of Brandon T. Jackson. And there is still no use of the music, while this kind of movie could be much better with epic music. The time of the peplum is definitely gone.  The DVD is also quite deceiving because there is no more extras about the Greek mythology as I have seen in the DVD of the Olympians.
Rating: 4 /10

The Final Countdown (1980)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1980
	Director: Don Taylor (The Island of Dr. Moreau, Escape from the Planet of the Apes)
	Actors: Kirk Douglas (Spartacus, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea), Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, Dead Zone), Katharine Ross (Donnie Darko), James Farentino
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, War
	Conditions of visioning: 28.01.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: While on a regular mission in the pacific ocean, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz encounters a kind of storm that sends it back to the past, just a few days before the Pearl Harbor attack.
Review: I had heard about this German Blu-ray edition as it was the world first for this movie. It is indeed pretty good, but I realized that very often (especially for the scenes inside the ship) only the center of the image is HD-sharp, the rest being blurred especially at the bottom of the frame. I do not know if this is due to the movie or to the transfer. One should compare to the American edition by Blue Underground but this one doesn't seem to be perfect either. The sound is not very powerful but otherwise very good. I loved this movie when I was a kid and I could now remember why. The story of time travel mixed with the context of war at a critical moment in WWII is fascinating, even if some say that it is only worth an episode of The Outer Limits. The stakes are made very easy to understand in order not to loose the viewer, and in fact not much happens during the movie. Instead, we spend a large amount of time watching planes flying, taking off, refueling etc... the day-today life on an Aircraft carrier, and that is what I liked as a kid. It is a fascinating piece of military equipment, as they emphasize in the movie. I enjoyed watching the movie again, although I became aware of its limitations. The main actors are great, and I like the design of the time vortex, bringing some surreal images like the one below.
Rating: 8 /10

Mission: Impossible II (2000)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2000
	Director: John Woo (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, Paycheck)
	Actors: Tom Cruise (Day of Thunder, Cocktail, The Firm), Dougray Scott (Hitman), Thandie Newton (The Pursuit of Happiness, The Chronicles of Riddick), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs)
	Country: D, USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.01.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Ethan Hunt (Cruise) assembles a team to retrieve a deadly virus stolen by a rogue agent (Scott).
Review: I borrowed the Blu-ray box-set of the Mission:Impossible quadrilogy to a friend, as I already own the slow and classical first movie and the excellent forth one (reviewed here). I remembered the two middle episodes to be mediocre, and was pleasantly surprised to see that at least this one, directed by a John Woo at the top of his Hollywood career, is not so bad in spite of some nonsense towards the end. You do get the slow motion gun drawings and pigeons taking off dear to the director, embedded in the universe established in the first episode, in a second movie revolving around the megalomaniac super star Tom Cruise. He is even producing the movie to make sure we always see him at his best, and we do: perfectly good-looking, nice haircut, nice muscles, a beautiful female partner at is side (Thandie Newton that could be mistaken for Zoe Saldana), irreproachable morale. The story of the rogue agent is often used in spy movies (Bond, Bourne...). The rhythm of the movie is as I like it: slow at the beginning and followed by good action scenes at increasing frequency. The love story is a bit cheesy and shows its Asian influences but that's all right. Finally not a bad spy/action movie, compared to what was produced in the following decade. Unfortunately the end abuses of all the elements introduced in the movie: Tom Cruise + slow motion + guns + the girl + the elite team + the vaccine + motorbikes + helicopters. That's too much.
Rating: 5 /10

Rear Window (1954)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1954
	Director: Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds, Vertigo, Psycho)
	Actors: James Stewart (Vertigo), Grace Kelly (Dial M for murder), Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 26.01.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Constrained to spend seven weeks at home in a wheel chair after an accident, a professional photographer (Steward) spies on his neighbours, alternating with visits from his nurse (Ritter), his girlfriend (Kelly) and a detective friend (Corey). He becomes convinced to have witnessed a murder.
Review: I have recently watched a few movies by Brian de Palma, spiritual son of Hitchcock, and then acquired the beautiful Blu-ray box-set (picture below) containing 15 movies by the master of suspense. Rear Window is the first one I watched, keeping the masterpiece Vertigo and the aging The Birds for later. The image quality is impressive (so sharp that you immediately notice the times when the actors are not in focus) but the sound is weak due to the original mono recording. I surely hope all movies in the box-set look as good. Rear Window is supposed to be such a classic of suspense (I may have seen it only once about twenty years ago) that I was a bit disappointed by the first one and a half hour. The story evolves only very slowly then, until it really reaches in the last 30 minutes the heights of suspense Hitchcock was known for. So the movie is not all about murder and suspense, and this may be what makes it strength 60 years after. One thing I love about Rear Window is the framing: the camera often scans the opposite wall of the apartment building and we glimpse the life of people living there: lonely middle-aged woman, young couple, pianist, old couple, troublesome couple. It sometimes looks like cartoon strips, and after one hour when the characters we know enter this frame it gives a strange feeling of violating the intimacy of what happens on the other side of this window. The movie may in fact be a reflection on cinema (the whole story of the fourth wall, also very well illustrated in Anguish, and in a different style in Last Action Hero). A second thing I noticed, especially in the first hour, is that most discussions turn around couples and what to do of your life. Indeed the main characters is in his forties, not married and not willing to, he prefers to travel for his work. I guess this was uncommon in the 50's. In contrast we see how the neighbours have managed: happy couple, unhappy couple or remaining single. This observation doesn't really help the hero in taking any decision. It will turn out to be the tragic event (the murder) that will bring him closer to his girlfriend and maybe consider a different life. A brilliant movie on many aspects.
Rating: 8 /10

Kill your darlings (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: John Krokidas
	Actors: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Jack Huston
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 20.01.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: In the early 1940s, Alan Ginsberg is an English major in Columbia University, only to learn more than he bargained for. Dissatisfied by the orthodox attitudes of the school, Alan finds himself drawn to iconoclastic colleagues like Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Together, this gang would explore bold new literary ideas that would challenge the sensibilities of their time as the future Beat Generation. However, for all their creativity, their very appetites and choices lead to more serious transgressions that would mark their lives forever.
Review: This stunning story tells a lot. About untold and told, existing and non-existing homosexuality within a group of friends. About the creative way of life that is possible in Columbia University by playing with the rules, with the people and with the Big Apple. About a way of taking a lot from life by experimenting without getting stuck in drugs.  This group bundled via poetry and experience spins around Daniel DeHaan, already seen in The place beyond the pines, where his acting was already excellent. The scenes with DeHaan are all great. In any feeling he can express it very strongly and transmit it to the viewer. Wow! The directing does not show anything special and this is why I do not give more points.
Rating: 7 /10

Best of cinema by Mad Movies. Part 4: 2009-2010

Every year my favorite magazine for action/horror/thriller/SF (Mad Movies) publishes the list of the best movies of the previous year (and the worst ones), according to its editors and an average for the whole magazine team.
I have gathered them for your here with a few comments. Enjoy!
All parts of this article can be found under this link.

The wolf of Wall Street (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Martin Scorsese
	Actors: Leaonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
	Country: USA
	Genre: Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 13.01.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: Based on the autobiography of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stockbroker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.
Review: The story has some funny scenes, all the orgies of new rich people, with sex, drugs but no rock'n'roll. These are very well filmed. Scorsese is very good at that. Between some repetitions of these parties, there are the usual scenes of "looking for drugs" and "the police is on me" as in any drug movie. Finally, Jordan Belfort seems to have abused from plenty of people in the absolute impunity. Not really a black comedy, but the story is told with cynism and it is again cynical that the author gets still money for having been living like that!
Rating: 5 /10

Conviction (2010)

	Also Known As: Betty Anne Waters (German)
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Tony Goldwyn (actor in Ghost, The Mechanic, The 6th Day)
	Actors: Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), Sam Rockwell (Moon, Horrible Bosses), Melissa Leo, Juliette Lewis (From Dusk till Dawn)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 17.01.2014, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: After her brother (Rockwell) is imprisoned for life for murder, a young woman (Swank) decides to start studying law after hours to become a lawyer and free him.
Review: I have started a new way to find good movies to watch: on the website of the German VOD provider Maxdome to which I subscribed, I go to the section of movies included in my basic offer (for the more recent ones you have to pay extra), down-select the ones in original version, down-select by genre (for example Thrillers) and then sort them by best rating. I found Conviction like this, as it was the highest rated of those Thrillers, and that 5000 viewers agreed to that! It is for me definitely more a Drama than a Thriller, even if you do get a part of investigation. The fact that the movie is based on a true story brings some reality to it, and this strong story combined with brilliant direction create a very good movie. Besides the great acting by Swank and Rockwell, I liked in particular the flashbacks presented all along the movie, emphasizing the complicity between the brother and sister, and making their separation even more tragic. Most of the movie is then spent showing her twelve years of stuggle to combine her couple, children, work, studies and visits to her brother. I had already heard about the Innocence project (a group of lawyers using DNA testing to free innocent convicts) from a book by John Grisham and Conviction is another well-presented example of the tragedy that is being locked up without being guilty.
Rating: 8 /10

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1978
	Director: Ralph Bakshi (Wizards, Fire and Ice)
	Actors (voices): Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, John Hurt (1984, The Oxford Murders)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Adventure, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 15.01.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In a fictionnal Middle-Earth, Frodo the Hobbit inherits a magic Ring from his uncle Bilbo. Guided by Gandalf the Magician, he will join a company to bring the Ring to destruction.
Review: Twenty years before the production of the famous trilogy by Peter Jackson officially started, somebody had already tried to bring to the big screen the masterpiece by J.R.R Tolkien which was supposed to be impossible to adapt. This man is Ralph Bakshi that I knew already from the Heroic Fantasy animated movie Fire and Ice which I quite liked. Like on Fire and Ice, Bakshi uses on The Lord of the Rings the technique called rotoscopy, i.e. he shot the whole movie in live action and then every single film frame was redrawn on celluloid to be later on animated. The advantages are that the animation is much more fluent and realistic, and the movie is supposed to be cheaper to do than a better-looking live action film or than a pure celluloid animated (because the artists mainly have to copy and not animate from scratch). This technique can also give the movie a more artistic tone as the backgrounds can be painted for a more dramatic impression. The drawback is that depending on how well it is done, you can either lack of details, or be confused by the too large amount of motions. So how was the result on The Lord of the Rings back in 1978? Well, it is interesting to see one of the first animated movies for adults produced at a time when Disney was on the decline, and the fluidity of animation brought by rotoscopy is indeed interesting. But I can't shake the feeling of boredom I had when watching the movie. Some reasons for that may be the poor acting and the poor voice performance, the too slow pace and bad editing, and expecially the soundtrack which is not exciting at all when there is any. It is a pity because it was a noble enterprise. Funny detail: in one scene and thanks to one look, the often interpreted latent homosexuality feelings between Frodo and Sam are made veeery obvious. There is another major problem but you notice it only if you watch the whole movie (2h16m). I remember to have read that the third book (The Return of the King) was extremely shortened in this movie, but it is actually not covered at all! The first 1h15 is dedicated to The Fellowship and the next hour to The Two Towers, and the movie stops there with the mention that it was the first part only. It is obvious that a second part was planned but never produced in spite of the commercial success of the movie. But the worst is that you expect to see the whole Lord of the Rings story as the Blu-ray cover doesn't mention that. I learned that it never did, neither in the cinema posters nor on the VHS/DVD/Blu-ray releases: cheaty marketing. Note that there exist animated versions of The Hobbit and of The Return of the King produced by a different team (more for children), and that the three movies are sometimes sold in a package. The recent Blu-ray edition is accompanied by a 30-minute making-of documentary entitled Forging through the darkness, but it is rather a fascinating tale of the life of Ralph Bakshi with minor emphasis on The Lord of the Rings. I had always thought that Peter Jackson claimed having had no influence at all from the Bakshi movie, but when watching some shots (Proudfeet!, Helm's Deep) and editing choices (exit Tom Bombadil, Shelob moved to The Return), it is obvious that this was not true, and I finally learned that Jackson acknowledged the influence and even praised it. Having recently watched An Unexpected Journey twice and all associated documentaries, The Desolation of Smaug in the cinema and this 1978 version of the Lord of the Rings, I am now very tempted to watch the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson version) in Blu-ray, which I haven't done yet since I purchase it. The more I write about this movie the more I want to give it a good rating because of its historial and cultural significance. I started at 2/10 and raised it to 4/10, but seriously I leave it at 3/10.
Rating: 3 /10

Gamer (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor (Crank 1-2, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance)
	Actors: Gerard Butler (300, Olympus has Fallen), Michael C. Hall (Paycheck), Ludacris (The Hangover), Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson 1-2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 14.01.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In this future society, volunteer prisoners like Kable (Butler) are controlled by video gamers like Simon (Lerman) in a bloody war simulation called Slayers, in order to gain their freedom.
Review: The short review would be that the concept is interesting and a good SF one, and the realisation is epileptic but rather fits the topic. There are several reasons why I like this movie. One is the violence in it which has not been reduced to accomodate the youngest teenage audience ; prisoners are fighting to the death, so you have to see gun wounds and explosions. Then the action (during the game) is filmed almost like a video game which is suited. Some scenes are rather extreme which makes them very enjoyeable. I remember very well that when reading the review in Mad Movies, the description of one crazy scene made me want to watch the movie: it is when Kabel ingests one bottle of Wodka just before the game, goes zig-zagging to an underground parking, and then pukes and pisses in the tank, in order to fuel the car and escape with it. how crazy is that?!? The rather classical story of wrongly emprisoned hero that will eventually get his family back and defeat the bad guy is not the most interesting in this movie (it s very similar to the one of Death Race that I have recently reviewed). The most interesting part in Gamer may be the description of the individuals in this future world. Some of them play Slayer, but before that they were playing Society, another game which offers you the life of your choice (like Second Life, or Facebook if you create a fake profile), except that you pay to control a real person and make him/her obey all your wishes (in Society most of those are sexual in nature), or you can pay to be one of the controlled character. Or you get paid to be controlled. This is what the wife of Kabel actually does to survive. I find quite interesting this kind of anticipation of where will the digital age and its social networks lead us.
Rating: 6 /10

The Mechanic (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Simon West (Con Air, Tomb Raider, The Expendables 2)
	Actors: Jason Statham (The Transporter 1-3), Ben Foster (Hostage, X-men 3), Donald Sutherland (JFK, Virus)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 12.01.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Arthur Bishop (Statham) is a gifted contract killer. His latest job will make him question his job and take an apprentice (Foster)
Review: Remake of a 1972 movie with Charles Bronson (that I have never seen), The Mechanic is different from the usual Jason Statham movie. He does inflict a good deal of ass kicking and lead indigestion, but we also see him troubled by his assignment, trying to pass on his knowledge and skills to someone else, and struggling against forces much bigger than him. There is a bit of "spy-movie" in this one, but nothing compared to any Bourne movie. The action and stakes get a bit confused towards the middle of the movie, but then manage to converge to the satisfying but half-expected ending. It should be interesting to see Charles Bronson in such a role and I may then try to purchase the original movie.
Rating: 5 /10

Enchanted (2007)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2007
	Director: Kevin Lima (Tarzan, 102 Dalmatians)
	Actors: Amy Adams (Man of Steel), Patrick Dempsey (Transformers 3), Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise), James Marsden (X-men 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Comedy, Animation
	Conditions of visioning: 11.01.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Giselle (Adams) lives in a cartoon fairy tale. Right before marrying her prince (Marsden), she is thrown by his evil step-mother (Sarandon) into the real world.
Review: I had never heard about this movie before and it doesn't belong to the category of movies I usually watch. But change is always welcome, I guess it doesn't hurt to watch a romantic comedy sometimes, especially since this one has a Fantasy component. I was really surprised by the animated start as I didn't know the plot, but then I could enjoy the comedy brought by the contradiction between Giselle's home fantasy world and the real New York City. This brings some good moments, like when she cleans an appartment with the help of animals (like SnowWhite does) except that in the city those animals are rats, pigeons and cockroaches. Also funny is when she starts to sing in Central Park (like in a cartoon) and brings along a crowd with her, but we sometimes glimpse her friend (Dempsey) solidly connected to the real world and understanding the oddness of it all. Rather cheesy Romance kicks in at some point but it is balanced by new characters appearing from the Fantasy land. Althought not my genre of movies, this one gets a good rating thanks to the original story and the offbeat situations. I actually think I like this embezzlement of the Disney world better than Shreck.
Rating: 7 /10

We're the Millers (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story)
	Actors: Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses), Jennifer Aniston (Friends TV-series, Bruce Almighty), Emma Roberts (Scream 4), Ed Helms (The Hangover 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 11.01.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: David (Sudeikis), a local dealer, has to accept a dangerous job from his own supplier (Helms): smuggle a large amount of cannabis from Mexico into the USA. He notices that he has less chances to be suspected if he travels like a family.
Review: I liked the idea of gathering four such different characters as a family in the purpose of smuggling drugs. The trailer promised some laughs and the movie gives some more. It is not a clever comedy, but it is neither as "dumb" as Zoolander or Dodgeball (don't get me wrong, I like "dumb" sometimes). I mean that the story is plausible but some situations are exaggerated. The movie is basically this: a succession of gags around the odd family, the risks they take, the troubles they get into and the people they encounter. SD VOD was the right medium for watching this movie on a bored Saturday afternoon.
Rating: 6 /10

Death Race (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Event Horizon)
	Actors: Jason Statham (The Mechanic), Joan Allen (Pleasantville, The Bourne Ultimatum), Tyrese Gibson (Transformers 1-3, Fast & Furious 2 5-7)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 13.01.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Jensen Ames (Statham), framed for the murder of his wife, ends up in a prison participating to a deadly car race organized by the warden (Allen).
Review: This movie is the remake of the 1975 classic Death Race 2000, in which the car race takes place from coast to coast across the USA, points are given to the racers when they kill on the road, the character of Frankenstein (played by David Carradine) has a grenade grafted to his hand so that he can blow up the President when he meets him after winning the race, and Sylvester Stallone plays a small role. You see that the movies don't have much in common except for the title, the tuned racecars and the mythic producer Roger Corman. Death Race 2000 actually reminds me more of the recent The Tournament in which the best assassins in the world meet in a selected town to compete for the "title", or of Gamer with Gerard Butler. The idea of collecting bonus on the road (ammunition, defence...) comes directly from the video game world and the movie is probably targetted to the same audience. The remake lost the main attraction for me (kill people on the road to get points!) and is annoyingly restricted to the jail environment (exit the totalitarian society and its leader, now the bad guy is only the jail warden), but the action is good although quite predictable.
Rating: 5 /10

Chasing ice (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Jeff Orlowski
	Actors: James Balog, Svavar Jónatansson, Jeff Orlowski
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 12.01.2014, Schauburg, followed by discussion with polar scientists from Alfred-Wegener Institute
Synopsis: The movie follows National Geographic photographer James Balog across the Arctic as he deploys time-lapse cameras designed for one purpose: to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers.
Review: The experiment is explained from the project viewpoint. This way it is understandable to anyone what is the goal, what are the means and the different difficulties are also explained. All accompanied by the great pictures and often photos (better quality than video) of the glaciers. The difficulties of the experiment and also the engagement of James Balog built a kind of suspense to the movie as well. The time lapse are long expected and come at the very end. The preparation of the experiment is good to have before to get prepared. Because the time lapses are so impressive and astonishing that I needed the afternoon to recover. It is not easy to see any parent dying and these glacier felt like parents to me but actually more to the humanity. Since decades other organisations like Greenpeace try to put the issue of global warming on the Climate summits using sometimes already pictures of famous glaciers in early 1900s and early 2000s. The movie showing time lapse over the recent years breaks completely the believe of a normal situation. It is impressive that in 10 years happens what usually took ten-thousands of years in the Earth history. I wonder whether it is possible to support this kind of visualisation of science for good and urgent purposes such as global warming. It is indeed a pity that Europeans are not involved and never make this kind of movie, while we have plenty of possibilities, Greenland, Norway, Svalbard are in Europe. The Alps have or had plenty of glacier.  After the movie the discussion with polar scientists made clear that the movie is not fake, that the situation is urgent, that we cannot really predict what is going on, that everyone needs to do something at its level, like saving energy, goods (costing energy indirectly), stopping generation of energy with coal (as Germany, China and India do).
Rating: 8 /10