Video Games: The Movie (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Jeremy Snead
	Actors: Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings 1-3), Zach Braff, Larry Akins, Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation & The Big Bang Theory TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 17.11.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: How did the Video Game industry evolve to become what we know today?
Review: I was curious to learn about the History of video games, as I was just the right age when it all started (about 10 years old) and I remember playing Pong, then owning a Sega Master System, a MegaDrive (Genesis), losing track of this universe for ten years before starting again with a PSP for travels and finally an Xbox360 now in my living room. The documentary (that saw the light thanks to crowd funding) starts with some factual numbers and quickly scans this history I wanted to learn about in twenty minutes. It then focuses on some topics of interest: creativity, technology, violence, social aspects and finally the future of the industry. But even if the interventions by celebrities are sometimes interesting, it all turns too quickly into a kind of advertisement for the Video Game industry, and one spends the second half of this 1h40 movie longing for the end. I would rather watch again Wreck-It Ralph.
Rating: 2 /10

The Blob (1988)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1988
	Director: Chuck Russell (The Mask, Eraser, The Scorpion King)
	Actors: Shawnee Smith, Kevin Dillon, Donovan Leitch Jr.
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 11.11.201, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: When a meteorite falls near a small town, a strange pink organism escapes from it and starts growing by ingesting the locals.
Review: I mentionned The Blob in my review of Basket Case, telling that I was in a mood those days to watch great Blu-ray copies of Horror classics form the 80's. I was lucky to read on the Mad Movies website about this edition of The Blob limited to 5000 copies (see the newly commisionned covers at the end of this post), I order it immediately and it was already Out-Of-Print and Sold Out by the time I received it (sadly you can now buy it only on Ebay to the many sellers who quickly acquired it to make a profit, although it was limited to one copy per person). This marketing strategy makes you feel like the limited edition was made only for you, and the written introduction in the booklet talking directly to you. Was it worth the bother? I would say yes without hesitation. First the image quality is fantastic, showing that the HD transfer process was done carefully, but also that the movie was not a random cheap production in 1988 but a serious one (it did cost $20M). Then I was expecting (also from memory since I saw the movie 15 years ago) quite cheap special effects and a laughtable Blob, but there again one can feel the solid budget and the quality of the job done by the effects crew: very far from the ones in Basket Case (understandably as 100 times the budget), and even better than the ones in John Carpenter's The Thing from 1982. When you know how much I love that movie, you understand there has to be something about The Blob. The story is quite classical (watching it brings Ivan Reitman's Evolution to mind), remake of the 1958 forgettable movie with the same title that became unexpectedly known because of its starring a young Steve McQueen in his first leading role. The music unfortunately bears the mark of the 80's but is not too intrusive. But what sets the movie apart is the clever adaptation work, departing from the 1958 analogy to the Communist invasion to a more modern conspiracy one (five years before the X-files TV-series). Also the characters are credible, contrarily to many semi-parodic horror stories of the time like Friday 13th for instance. And when you think the movie is drifting into an easy teenager slasher, it takes you by surprise with a "Mise en abyme" of the cinematographic experience: you are actually watching a movie within the movie, which reminds me of the excellent Matinee and Anguish. Very clever. Finally, to illustrate one of the best things in this movie (the film-making, including framing), let me try something new on this blog and dissect (modestly) the short scene that opens the movie. I have pasted some screenshots below (click on the first and then natigate through them in full screen). After some static shots of the (deserted) town in which the movie will take place (while the credits are displayed), we end up with a view of the cemetery. Is it where everybody is or where they will end up after the Blob is done with them? The camera then slowly pans towards the upper-left while revealing the last of the credits: the director's name. Quickly (third image already) we see some concrete structure emerging from the corner towards which the frame is panning. We start to see some people looking away from the graveyard (turning their back to their future?), but what are their all looking at? We finally understand that their are all cheering for a baseball game, on the pitch of which the image finally settles. This first master shot immediately told me that at least the framing and editing were going to be good, showing the importance of the opening scene in a movie.
Rating: 8 /10

Interstellar (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Inception)
	Actors: Matthew McConaughey (Contact, Ed TV), Anne Hathaway (Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight Rises), Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine (Harry Brown)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 10.11.2014, CINEMA theater
Synopsis: In a world invaded by dust, former pilot Cooper (McConaughey) is now farming to survive with his family (father-in-law and two children). He will find out about a project of interstellar travel aiming at finding a new home for mankind.
Review: Five days after the release of this movie, the cinema room was still full thanks to the good word-of-mouth surrounding it. The trailer promises a parallel between the space travel and the survival on Earth, and this is what we get. We were also promised a realistic yet mind-blowing tale of Science Fiction in the line of 2001, A Space Odyssey, and we get that as well. To me Interstellar is almost a remake of 2001 because it sends the same message in a visually similar fashion, but with a more modern film-making technique and the will by Nolan not to loose the random movie-goer with too complicated scientific and philosophical implications.... well at least for as long as possible. Note that my comparison with 2001, more favorable to Interstellar, doesn't mean that I think bad of Kubrick's Masterpiece. Actually I am eager to watch it again very soon in Blu-ray. In fact, the resemblance with 2001 is simply due to both their influence by the same master of Science-Fiction Arthur C. Clarke. Similar topics are found in Rendez-vous with Rama and The Songs of Distant Stars, not so much in the other novels I have read: Childhood's End, The City and the Stars and The Fountains of Paradise. I felt so much that influence that right after the movie I purchased the third novel in the Rama series that Clarke started with Rendez-vous with Rama, and I ferociously started to read it and follow this SF story where I left if off after the two first books. The movie even includes Clarke's motto: Humanity may have been born on Earth, it was not meant to die there. I also noticed some common elements with the graphic novel Universal War. The anchoring point of the story is quite actual: pollution in the form of dust (coming from the mines around the globe that we used to harvest the rare elements required by our current technology?) but the effect on humans is slow: at first it limits the production of cereals to almost exclusively corn (well, like it is the case already as I learned while watching Food Inc.). From there, we follow in the person of Cooper a father that wishes to see his family again, and an adventurer on a mission to save the world. With respect to that dual story, I found that Nolan manages the feelings conveyed by the characters in the best way since Memento, and the rhythm (editing) is very well balanced (where did the 3 hours go?!?). I was missing those two elements in the Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception. Some actors are great. Matthew McConaughey find himself in a movie with a similar topic to Contact, but as a completely different character and playing it differently as well (To see another side of him, also watch Killer Joe). Michael Caine is majestic, as I noticed again recently in The Dark Knight, Dressed to Kill and Harry Brown. And the music by Hans Zimmer, although minimalistic, is mesmerizing. An important goal of this movie was to make it as realistic as 2001 but more accessible. You notice that when the action pauses so that a character can explain what are black holes or time relativity. On the other hand some events and technological feats are taken for granted and seem quite unrealistic (some example that could be spoilers, highlight to read: cryo-sleep, the resistance of the spaceship to the proximity with a black hole, the difference between the gargantuan black hole and the worm hole they travel through, the topology of the visited planets...), but this is all part of the suspension of disbelief and I accept that if it means making an accessible movie. Finally about the philosophical / scientific themes in the movie: I really liked the ecological and ethical sub-text in the movie (what are we doing to our planet and how will this affect the life of our children?). In particular the mythology of Lazarus (the spaceship named after a figure that had to die in order to be reborn) let me thoughtful long after the end of the movie. After all the quality of the this movie is difficult to share, it is more a question of feeling, and I had a very good one after leaving the projection. I found that the pure SF bits (space travel and time relativity) were perfectly in place, and some revelations in the movie actually meet some of my own fantastic theories, undoubtedly elaborated in my dreaming mind after having read some of Arthur C. Clarke's work. It is a pity that some people in the theater didn't get the meaning of the movie and instead of keeping their ignorance to themselves, laughed during some revelations in the last half hour. To watch this kind of movie I am unfortunately but definitely better off at home on my Home cinema.
Rating: 9 /10

No good deed (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Sam Miller
	Actors: Idris Elba, Taraji Henson, Leslie Bibb, Henry Simmons
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 03.11.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: A lonely mother, invites a handsome car accident victim into her home. Desperate for a little attention, she doesn't realize she's entertaining a sociopathic, yet charming escape convict. In one terrorizing night her life completely changes as she fight for her own life and the life of her children.
Review: The plot sounds good, but the story development is totally foreseeable. There is no original directing neither. The acting of Idris Elba, Henson and Bibb is natural and this is the only positive point in this movie, from my point of view.
Rating: 2 /10

París norðursins (2014)

	Also Known As: Paris of the North, Paris des Nordens
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson
	Actors: Björn Thors, Helgi Björnsson, Nanna Kristín Magnúsdóttir
	Country: IS
	Genre: Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 02.11.2014, CineStar2, NFDL2014, Icelandic with English subtitles
Synopsis: Hugi (Thors), a teacher, has gone to seek shelter in a village in the west of Iceland, where it’s nice and peaceful and predictable. He has an affair with Erna (Magnúsdóttir). This comes to an abrupt end when his father Veigar (Björnsson), from whom he’s heard nothing in years, suddenly announces a visit. Father and son are not exactly compatible. The only people messed-up, mid-30s Hugi can relate to are the other two members of the local Alcoholics Anonymous group. Veigar, freshly returned from Thailand, is more of a young-at-heart playboy, and also a passionate beer drinker. But after considerable start-up difficulties, they recognize they have something in common; they’ve both found ways to avoid facing up to themselves.
Review: The story is not very original. Alcohol issues. Father and son's lack of communication. We do not enter much in the personalities of neither the son nor the father. There are a couple of funny scenes and a first scene very well shot: Hugi is running for a few minutes and at the end come the dialogues, all this in one sequence-shot.
Rating: 3 /10

Blind (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Eskil Vogt
	Actors: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Vera Vitali,  Marius Kolbenstvedt
	Country: N
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2014, CineStar5, NFDL2014
Synopsis: Ingrid (Petersen) has recently gone blind. She remembers the way her familiar surroundings look, but the images in her head are becoming darker. Is her husband Morten (Rafaelsen) really going to work in the morning, like he says he is? Or is he staying in the apartment, secretly avoiding his wife? Is he typing emails to his colleagues or to a lover? Morten’s old friend Einar (Kolbenstvedt) is a cultural enthusiast; he treasures film and music. Yet he wastes time watching porn videos on the Internet and observing a Swedish woman Elin (Vitali) who lives in an apartment on the other side of the street. Elin has just gone through a divorce, and has lost her entire social environment. When something inexplicable happens, she can only turn to her ten-year-old daughter. And isn’t she being watched by somebody on the other side of the street?
Review: The story is complex. I had the impression to see three narrative phases. In the first phase I believed there were several stories. In the second it was confusing to me. In the third SPOILER I believed the stories were imagined or written by Ingrid. Finally the atmosphere of confusion is dominating within the friends having watched Blind as well. This confusion is interesting because it leads to different options and different points of views, different stories. Without the mystery of David Lynch movies, Blind brings the same strange feeling of confusion and suspense at the same time.  The acting is very good, convincing, although the roles have changing personalities. The scenery of the different appartments is interesting because they are quite neutral but with differences so that one knows that Ingrid is not always in the same appartment, as the other characters. This gives the impression that something is wrong. It could be that the times are different, or one part is real and the other is dream or imagination. That was also good.
Rating: 7 /10

I am Number Four (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: D.J. Caruso
	Actors: Alex Pettyfer (In Time), Timothy Olyphant (Die Hard 4.0), Dianna Agron, Kevin Durand (Real Steel)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 07.11.2014, HD VOD, 11" computer screen
Synopsis: Hiding on Earth like eight others, John Smith a.k.a. Number 4 (Pettyfer) is chased by the Mogadorians who destroyed his planet.
Review: Typical SF movie for teenagers, I am Number Four is based on a best-seller novel. Six more episodes follow and were planned to be adapted as well but the relative disappointment of this first movie put a halt to that.  The mythology of teenage aliens hiding on Earth reminds of the Roswell TV-series and is not very exciting. The first action scene may promise something better, but after 15 minutes when the hero insists on going to school I understood we would just spend the rest of the movie following his struggle to survive and find his place among the humans, confront bullies at school and eventually love. How easy. The last 20 minutes show some good action and Digital Effects (I like the design of the monsters) and we get to see good fights (and the Mogadorians Commander is well played by Kevin Durand), but this doesn't compensate for the weak central hour. Well, that was good enough to watch in bed on a lazy evening.
Rating: 2 /10

Food Inc. (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Robert Kenner
	Actors: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Richard Lobb
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 07.11.2014, SD VOD, 11" computer screen
Synopsis: The truth about how food is nowadays produced by a handful of multinational companies.
Review: This is one of the great things with VOD (Netflix now in my case): it proposes choices of movies I would have otherwise never bought or rented, and permits me to watch documentaries, which is the only thing I miss from the far-gone time when I was still watching TV. This documentary was nominated for the Academy Awards, but I didn't find it to be that well done. The topic is definitely interesting, and rather well presented (sliced in 6-8 topics/chapters), but the approach is not revolutionary, and I still have the felling of many ellipses, hard to avoid about a topic so vast. During the movie you learn or get confirmation of what you could suspect how food (corn or cattle) is produced in our global world, and it doesn't make you hungry. I liked that the documentary doesn't spend too much time showing animal cruelty to provoke reaction from the audience. Instead we get presented facts, and interviews from the too few people who dared speaking against the system. I was not completely depressed at the end of the movie because I try to believe that the food production in Europe is still (at least partly) in the hands of farmers and not multi-national corporations looking for the maximum profit without caring about the pubic health. In our old continent you can still easily find good food grown reasonably and not extensively, but it is true that you have to pay the price. In the documentary you see a family of four getting served a "full" lunch at a drive-through for 11 dollars, hard to beat but when you see how the meat looks like at the factory (after ammonia baths to kill the infamous bacteria E.Coli O104:H4), how the family members are fat and the father need to spend 100 dollars a month to fight diabetes...
Rating: 6 /10

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2004
	Director: Raja Gosnell (Home Alone 3, The Smurfs 1&2)
	Actors: Freddie Prinze Jr. (I know what you did last Summer, Wing Commander), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV-series), Matthew Lillard (Scream), Seth Green (Idle Hands, Austin Powers 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 10.11.2014, SD VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: The team of Mystery Incorporated will loose face in front of the citizens of Coolsville and will have to fight a new enemy that will awake sereval of the monsters they unmasked in the past.
Review: I can't remember if I saw the first Scooby-Doo movie because it didn't leave any impression in my mind, and this one will have the same effect. The movie is actually very faithful to the original cartoon that I loved to watch as a kid: costumes, characters, monsters, mystery, colors, tone and - unfortunately- slapstick humour, but what worked well in a 20-min cartoon fails completely in a 1h30 movie. The digital effects are sometimes original and of OK-quality for the time. The mystery part (10% of the movie) could have been interesting and end up with a traditional unmasking (as it does), but it is drowned in pseudo-romance, self-reflection from all the characters and dumb non-funny jokes by Scooby and Shaggy. No doubt that the actors were perfectly found for the role (Lillard seems to take a great pleasure playing a cartoon character) but this doesn't save the movie.
Rating: 1 /10

Itsi Bitsi (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Ole Christian Madsen
	Actors: Joachim Fjelstrup, Marie Tourell Søderberg, Christian Gade Bjerrum, Ola Rapace
	Country: DK
	Genre: Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2014, Kolosseum, NFDL2014, OV Danish with English subtitles
Synopsis: Denmark, 1962. As protests against nuclear missiles and political imperialism grow louder, the activist Eik Skaløe (Fjelstrup) meets pretty Iben (Søderberg). Eik, who fancies himself a poet and author, is immediately taken with his new acquaintance. She's not only enthusiastic about literature, the latest music and drugs, but also about free love and lack of commitment and Eik has to share her with Christian (Bjerrum) and later with Vincent (Rapace). As they embark on an odyssey together from Copenhagen through Europe and on to Baghdad, Eik tries everything to win over Iben. In a last big push, he founds Steppeulvene, Denmark's first psychedelic rock band. However, he still doesn’t manage to achieve his romantic goal.
Review: The story is interesting and full of suspense even if the dive into drugs is foreseeable. Let's say that the romance is full of suspense and this romance story is beautiful as well with tops, flops, rivalities, lightness, many differents emotions and feelings. The musical part comes only at the end and as further element of the romance story.  The directing of drug sequences are slightly psychedelic having both images of the drugged person and the creative moment for Eik coming just after. He keeps writing the undless book all his life and this sounds a kind of real metaphor of his romance and this is again beautiful. As I did not found any poster of the movie, the picture is one LP of the Danish band Steppeulvene. I did not know at all this band before the movie but now I find it interesting and am curious to listen a bit more of this. The first CD I listened was ok, the song Itsi Bitsi being the highlight.
Rating: 7 /10