LeonBlank Blog

Expository-Ernie and the First World War in studio

LeonBlank — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:21:11 GMT

Ever since I heard about the story of this film - which actually happened quite much before I heard that they were making a film about it as well - I've been thrilled. As an aggressive anti-war person - at least in my mind - I'm easilly pleased by pacifistic war films.

Joyeux Noel was badly written, dotted with unnecessary expositions and weak dialog, and shot in studio environment that resembled nothing more than a studio built to look like the 1914's war field in christmas. These problems never bothered so much that I would've actually be annoyed, but lurked in the background for the first half so strongly it was hard to get immersed by the story and characters.

However, once that happens - propably it depends on the person and time varie - you can't not love the story. Once you accept that this is a film with it's own problems, and just look at the spirit and the good heart the film has been crafted with, it becomes a really beautiful christmas story that reminds you on the very fact that there's nothing as useless, stupid and pointless activity in the world than war, and in most cases, it's not that people hate each others, they are just forced to hate.

This films leaves a nice warm feeling and a grin on your face.

Sentimental War Epic

LeonBlank — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:21:47 GMT

Clint Eastwood is much a better director than one would like to accept, but he tends to direct pretty dull films. It might be me, but none of the Eastwood-films are too enlighting experiences, although beautiful and usually well-done in and out. Flags of our Fathers is no expection.

Clint uses always a great cast and crew to produce his vision a super-high quality. He's not a master of big surprises, but he knows well how to tell a astory. Flags of our Fathers tells a story about the guys who raised the legendary flag in Iwo Jima, after a glorious fight - or at least most of them did. It's a story of heroes, and the dilemma of heroes - are there heroes, and if so, what makes a person a hero.

Flags has some wonderful scenes, but it suffers this time from pretty lousy acting on few fronts, as well as pretty dull story. All the mise-en-scene, props and sets are wonderful and beautifully shot, but the only interesting person in the film - an Indian alcoholic soldier, played by Adam Beach, is sloppishly acted and although he would be the key to the moral of the story, viewer doesn't care enough to get inside his head.

Other than that, the film has little to complain, just wish it would've been more interesting and a bit more outrageous.

Wonderfully crafted film that suffers from over-economization

LeonBlank — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 21:14:08 GMT

Perfume is a wonderful example of a film, where every part is almost perfect. The director Tom Tykwer has a very good grip on the story and the characters, and all the actors are doing their job as good as one could ever ask for. Camera, lights... everything is in it's place. Even the script works, but the problem comes also from the fact that the script has been economized a little too much. By economy I mean the thing you have to do to fit a 300-page novel to a 2-hour script. Tykwer did the right thing when he decided to take the time to build the story up, and slide every element slowly and beautifully to it's place. This meant that the latter part of the film had elements that suffered because of the suddenly much faster pace that had to be taken to get everything together. But that wasn't a big flaw, you really could enjoy the whole package pretty well. Visually, the film was outstanding, although some of the CGI scenes didn't quite fit to the overall look and feel. What I admired about the direction and the actors and the camera as well was the constant beautiful physical motion everything was all the time - characters leaning on a sofa, walking on the street, agile camera moving poetically through the scenes. Wonderful.

To sum it up, The Perfume was a good film.

The clash of cultures

LeonBlank — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:54:38 GMT

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is in many ways - also as a concept - very strong commentary about the clash of cultures. Directed by a Japanese director, but shown from a British perspective, and starring by two of both world's biggest music stars, the setup itself is intriguing. This film is shot in a nice and slow pace, beautiful scenes and well acted, and gives a very good and important view on the war: nobody is ever right.

Anothe great movie from Miyazaki, the master of alternative aviation!

LeonBlank — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 14:28:46 GMT

I really love Hayao Miyazaki's works. His slow pace, beautiful colours and small details accompanied by a beautiful fantastic realism -stories bring the same experience of wonder to both kids and adults. In a time where rarely no films can bring on the true wonder of storytelling, Miyazaki always succeeds!

Kiki's Delivery Service is no expection. it tells a story about a girl in her pre-teens, a witch apprentice, who moves away from his parents to a big city. Besides being a story about a girl, it also talks about deeper themes of change and becoming an adult.

Like Totoro and other wonderful works by Miyazaki, Kiki's Delivery Service gives a feeling of excitement, warmth and love, as well as a hint of the scary world outside his stories. Although Kiki is a pretty long film, at least for an animation, and the story gets a bit slow in the last quarter for some time, the film is a complete work of a filmmaker this world will miss once he's gone.

Angel Heart had potential...

LeonBlank — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:59:46 GMT

...but time had been a victoreous enemy. A bit of naivistic detective-story in a voodoo/satanism -ridden world, where stupidly-named Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) meets a a set of just-as-stupidly named villians and friends, finds himself tangled in a web of mysteries and tries to find out what has happened to Johnny Favourite, a wartime singer now gone missing for 12 years.

Angel Heart is a film made in the 80's, with all it's goodies and bad things. Director, Alan Parker, has propably been watching a lot of Blue Velvet and films of that type to create a haunting atmosphere, which propably was scaryish back in the days, but today all the tricks have been seen million + 1 times, it's not really doing anything but putting the viewer on a nostalgy trainride.

There's nothing badly wrong about Angel Heart, only the fact that it's a victim of it's own time. But then again, actors are great, director knows what he is doing and the story works, so no reason one shouldn't love this film as well.

Hilarious Post-darwinocaust comedy

LeonBlank — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:49:32 GMT

I've never been a huge fan of Mike Judge and his Beavis & Butt-Head or King of the Hill, so although I loved the idea of this film, it took a long while for me to actually check it out. Eventually when I did, I have to say I was impressed.

Mike Judge, the guy who did crappy animations, seems to know how to do a good, laughable idiot-comedy with enough twist and timing to make it rise from the pile of those where these normally belong. Idiocracy tells a story of a world attacked by the darwinistic facts: when stupid people are only ones that reproduce, the world gets stupider. The main character Bowers played by Luke Wilson, takes part in an army experiment to freeze a person for a year. Too bad it's forgotten for 500 years, and Bowers wakes up in the world gone badly wrong.

Idiocracy is filled with nice gags and funny moments, although the storyline itself doesn't carry too strong. Eventually, it's not a bad thing, one grows to like the characters pretty quickly, so their lives become relevant.

Idiocracy is a good film, which has received too much negative feedback. Too bad the production company was afraid to show it enough, but hopefully the DVD will get some money back. I will at least buy one!

Losing it...

LeonBlank — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:41:21 GMT

It's funny how remarkably noticeably Shrek the Third is a film series, that was squeezed almost dry in first two, and the last two-hand push didn't get enough to fill the cup, not even halfways. Shrek the Third doesn't offer anything new from the old themes and jokes already seen in the two previous films. It's not all crap, though. You get to laugh enough here and there, but the big picture is just dull and doesn't move at all. All the actors work great, the CGI is fine (although a bit outdated...) and director seems to know how to do his work. The script has lost the touch and the creators don't seem to care enough anymore - therefor, nothing interesting to see.

The world according to David Lynch

LeonBlank — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 14:15:40 GMT

David Lynch, one of the greatest filmmakers alive, has always done interesting films. This was the one that picked me in to his strange world, introduced me to the great music of David Bowie (though db's music is not in the film), and made me wanted to start film directing.

The film itself tells the story of Laura Palmer's death, before it has happened. Twin Peaks -prequel is a strange way to approach the mystery, but does give much to the TV-series itself. Explaining and extending the story, it's a great gift to Twin Peaks fanatics, and a strange film with a huge loads of strange scenes for others. It's propably not gonna work if you don't absolutely love Twin Peaks, and not even then, but if you are a fan of strange stories and Lynch's great visions, this is definitively a film for you.

Unemployent and Finnish anxiety

LeonBlank — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 14:09:09 GMT

Aki Kaurismäki is an auteur film director from Finland, and his very distinctive style is visible in both beautiful cinematography as well as in dark, even comically dark, stories. Kauas pilvet karkaavat is one of his greatest works. It tells a story of a tram driver and his wife, a waiter, who both lose jobs and face the grey world of uselessness and sorrow. Together they start to survive in the cold world.

Kauas pilvet karkaavat is a very beautiful and even a sad story, which is told in very Kaurismäkis style - few words here and there, long shots and strange humour. Carefully crafted film with a good story and great character make this one of the most Finnish films out there, as well as one of the greatest films from Finland.