Displaying all 4 Review

• „If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.” — for Sucker Punch
  Written by olympiquetango on 19.04.2011

  „If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.”
  Or why Sucker Punch kicks ass
  +++Attention+++Spoilers+++
  So many talks about this movie, so many bad reviews. Zack Snyder caused a stir again. As usual I did the same I always do: f*ck the reviews, watch it!
  So I am sitting in the theatre, surrounded by so many testosterone dripping guys. The movie starts. I am overwhelmed by the music and the pictures. But what is this? I hear a first annoyed sigh from the guy sitting next to me. Don´t pay attention I think, watch the movie.

  But I already get a taste of why people didn´t seem to like this movie. It is not a classical “come here baby, your tough man is gonna protect you from all evil in the world, with all my weapons, if you catch my drift, muhahahahaha” kinda movie. For a man, no shining heroes you can reflect yourself into, no bloodbath they caused and no cool sound bites, saving whomever from whatever… and there were so many of these male heroes in the trailers they showed before Sucker Punch started: The Green Lantern, Thor, Battle LA... Everyone who was expecting something like this got a real sucker punch.

  In this movie there was noone a man wants to identify himself with. Oke, everyone who watched the trailer knew the main characters would be female. But usually there is at least one male hero helping the girl(s) out when the shit hits the fan. And then there is also a dark side that can be sexy. Think of all the Bond Badasses, or the Godfather(s) which have a huge fanbase. Or think of the dubious Rorschach with his raw methods who is the only watchmen that toes the line at the end.
  Nothing like that in Sucker Punch. The antagonists in the missions are changing fast and arbitrary. We have giant samurais, Kaiser Wilhelm Zombies, Orcs and mechanic Guards. Cannon fodder…

  The main male antagonist, Blue Jones, who is exploiting the girls for his own ends, makes it even worse for any healthy man to identify himself with him. If we have a closer look at that character we will see, that he is a nobody who was given a little power. And now he is using this power recklessly on the ones who are even weaker than him. He does whatever it takes not to lose this power. Rarely such a façade was better staged… and when this façade starts to crumble you start hating him and his methods even more.
  But the girls long for freedom. Freedom meaning breaking free from this male dominated world of the bordello. Ready to fight for it. And at this point it doesn´t matter where everything takes place: an asylum for mentally insane or a brothel. Either way you are excluded from what we call a normal life, or to quote Rocket “[They]´re already dead.” And if you are dead, you have nothing to lose.

  The doctor isn´t a positive attachment figure as well. As the High Roller he paid a shitload of money for the privilege of the first night with Baby Doll…

  If we take a closer look at the dresses we see a clear connection to the 50ies. Why do I mention this? The 50ies had a male dominated social structure. I somehow don´t wanna believe Synder didn´t choose this styling on purpose. In the world he creates in Sucker Punch men are in authority. Blue Jones, the policemen, the doctor, even the only helping hand, the busdriver, a man.

  The only female character with at least some kind of power is Dr. Vera Gorski. But the men take even her with a pinch of salt. Blue Jones is faking her signature like a duck takes to water, to enable the lobotomy on the girls- for which again men (and in this case the abusers) pay good money.
  And then the missions of the 5 girls… They are so different from what we were used to see in movies. The first one takes place where men clearly failed: trench warfare in WWI. Why exactly we don´t know. Yeah well, they need a map. But why do they need the map? No „this map will end the war“ or “without this map the Germans will loose”… Doesn´t matter, the order was given. Now get the fuck out of there and risk your lifes ladies! Same situation on the second mission. Kill the baby dragon, get the cristals, kill the mommy. Why? Just get it goddamn it! It is an order. The order is given by a man. That´s why. Finally on the third mission you get something like a reason. The bomb will explode in the city if you fail. No further information though. How many people live there? Why this city? And when the city is finally shown is seems uninhabited, sterile. You cannot see potential victims.

  Zack Snyder breaks with all elements we were used to see in his former movies. He is a master of great pictures and emotions. That is why I don´t think he made a bad movie this time. If the (mostly) male audience feels like that, then I think it was on purpose.
  So if I am right and he did it on purpose, he did a great job. If the studios knew about it, it was brave. And this courage needs to get rewarded. So go to the theatres and watch it. Or buy the DVD.
  If i am wrong, well then take this sucker punch like a soldier and stand up again. I survived the black swan. You will survive this.

  Oh and i almost forgot. When the movie was over I stood up and yelled at the constantly sighing guys sitting next to me: “ha ha and you didn´t even see any boobies” ;)

• How long can you stay clean in a dirty world? — for Lilja 4-ever
  Written by olympiquetango on 11.05.2011

  How long can you stay clean in a dirty world?
  Spoilers!
  Loud music. A girl running. Tears in her eyes and despair. And blood on her young face. Hectic shots give you the feeling of panic, misery. The drama. Rammstein is singing “Mein Herz brennt”. Lilja is done. Motorway bridge. Jump or not?
  The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of this movie is compassion. Lilja 4-ever captivated me. Made me sad, angry, made me feel helpless and weak. During this story that seems to be a passion I felt like screaming “no, don´t do it. Be careful”… in vain. You won´t find respite. You start to understand. This story will cover you in a cape of darkness. The days of light are over.
  But before we see whether Lilja jumps or not Lukas Moodysson takes as to the time and place where the breakup starts. The story is plain, clear and without a shadow of a doubt a forcefully narrated melodrama but still drawn through with a different kind of seriousness.
  Almost oneiric told, it reminds you sometimes of the movies of Robert Bressons with which it shares the same religious subtexts. Moodysson´s name was put on the map with his blitheful-sensitive movies “Fucking Åmål” and “Tilsammen”. Already in these movies the director proved himself as someone with a grasp for leading young actors and showing their juvenile interior view- the only ones he takes serious in his movies. The adult world seems like a nightmare. From the very beginning you can see a foreshadowing in Liljas 15 year old face. Lilja. This russian girl in the Ukraine. Where once the Sovjet Union was powerful now ruins assing the landscape. The promised land is called US of A. Lilja´s mother also wants a re-start. And when she gets the chance to, she even leaves her only child behind.
  Lilja is left in a world where homo homini lupus est. Moodysson always manages to make a connection to the western world. Shows us, we are somehow responsible for the situation Lilja is stuck in without losing the focus on the girl and us feeling sorry for her. Most haunting here is Lilja´s hunger for happiness, her childish hoping and an angelesque innocence. And nevertheless she is lost:
  She loses her home, tries drugs, grows lonely, sinks into poverty, gets betrayed multiple times and ends up as an illegal prostitute in Sweden. She tried to be away from all that so hard though. In one scene we see her throwing away a certain amount of “dirty” money she got from a “friend” although she needs it so much. A typical Moodysson scene. He is in love with his characters and in this case also in their agony…
  The only friend Lilja has is an unloved little boy. And he is the only one who tries to save her in his own way. But the tragedy recaps. Like her mother left her, Lilja leaves her friend, who commits suicide.
  The actress who plays Lilja- Oksana Akinshina- does an awesome job. Lilja appears smart and real.
  Stylistically Lilja 4 ever is narrated fast and straight-lined. What starts like a Popmovie gets more and more penurious and concentraded. The main focus is on Lilja. Every now and then the camera deepens in her face. The music is like the rollercoaster of emotions the viewer is in; from Vivaldi to t.a.T.u. to Alphaville to Rammstein…
  Lilja is escaping more and more into a dreamworld. At the end we see all the right decisions that have not been made in this life. And then Lilja is done, standing on a bridge. “Mein Herz brennt”…

• Fuck the scene! Everyone dies! — for Murder Party
  Written by olympiquetango on 19.05.2011

  Fuck the scene! Everyone dies!

  SPOILER ALERT

  Chris actually wanted to have a comfy evening with some horrormovies and candies. The first VHS tape, “Scare Wolf” is choosen. But what is this? Cat lancelot is laying lazy on his TV chair and makes no efforts to clear the field for him. So Chris decides to go to this dubious Halloween “Murder Party”. Well he is not really invited. He found the invitation accidentally on the street. But hey, who cares? Better than waiting for the cat to leave the chair…
  Quickly he makes a Knight costume out of a cardboard box, bakes pumpking bread of that what is left from the pumpkinhead kids smashed infront of his door and is ready to leave.
  When he finally arrives at a storage building, the strangly rouged and costumed party guests seem to have a boring time. But his appearance gives the whole mood a sudden kick. What a relief… Or maybe not? In the next scene we see Chris tied on a chair. Furthermore he finds out in a painful manner that he is the guest of honor of this “Murder Party” and that his life will be exhaled in an artful way this night...

  Halloween inspired a lot of horrormovies since it is a nice frame for a movie of this genre. Plus the best thing about this yank feast is that you can buid in so many references to other movies thanks to the costumes…
  Director Jeremy Saulnier does exactly the same. We see a group of Droogs, e.g. They belong to “A Clockwork Orange” as much as the sound of Ludwig van Beethoven. And another hommage is the really striking rouged Baseball Player from the “Warriors” (which also appears in a similar way in “ The Riffs” as far as I know).

  The entry to the story is a real joy, because Chris gets introduced in a really funny way. We get to know he is a naïve character. The whole comedylike scenario gets crowned by the manual skills he shows by making his own costume. Almost surreal appears his way to the party and you really wanna know how things will develop.
  Unfortunately after we get to know all the facts, the story loses it´s speed a bit. It seems like Saunier tried to stretch the middle part of his independend production to get a full-length feature. But after you get rewarded with a lot of sex, drugs and rock´n´roll paired with art and violence. Lotsa fooling around and chainsaw-brain action. A true ode to joy!

  The mostly unknown Actors really do a great job. If you have any friends doing art you will have a lot of pleasure finding similarities to real existing (wannabe) artists, their lordly behavior and skin-deep talks…

  The score is a mix of italo-and mainstreamhorrorsound with a pinch of 80ies Pop.

  As a result I can say, “Murder Party” is a flick that is a pleasure to watch. Especially if you keep in mind that it was a low budget production although it doesn´t look like one

• Moonnazis are attacking the world! — for Iron Sky
  Written by olympiquetango on 16.04.2012

  SPOILER!

  The Finnish space-satire was hitting trash movie fan hearts even before movie was taken. Let´s make a time travel. It is 1990 when a young group of movie nerds somewhere in Finland start creating a Star Wars parody. The mother of one nerd provides a room in her house for the project. Shootings start with a video-cam and an ancient green screen. The fighting effects are generated later on the computer in the kitchen of visual-effects-tinkerer Samuli Torssonen. Samuli and his comrade Timo Vuorensola already let the slowly growing internet community take part in their project; they allow them to comment on it and to bring in own ideas. When the group finally uploads Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning in 2005, it reaches millions of views.
  One year later director Timo Vourensola sits in the sauna with a friend and talks about a new story: after the end of WWII , Nazis flew to the dark side of the moon to settle down. In the year 2018 they wanna come back to conquer the Earth. There could be a “Meteor-Blitzkrieg” and a Nazi spaceship called “Götterdämmerung”. Udo Kier should be in that movie and the Slovenian industrial band Laibach- who like to perform in uniforms-could compose the score. What a trash! Six years later Iron Sky has its world premiere on the Berlinale 2012 in Berlin. The crazy idea turned into a 7,5 million Euro production. One tenth was contributed by the internet community. And even though being an independent production Iron Sky got more attention than a lot of blockbusters.
  What a success. Iron Sky already has a strong influence in seminars about viral marketing, crowd sourcing and crowd financing. A future audience helped pushing, designing and financing the movie. And Iron Sky shows again that you can make bucks with Nazis in pop culture. It is a product of a change in media, digitalization, and the potentiality of social media. Maybe this all helped convincing conventional subsidy to support this movie that sounded a lot like a “Naziploitation”. Maybe Quention Tarantino´s Inglourious Basterds (2009) also helped to pave the way for more utopist or dystopist interpretations of the Third Reich. You can certainly say “Chapeau!” for Timo Vuorensola´s stamina to finish this movie. BUT- is this a funny movie?
  Well, in my case I can only say, after years of waiting, I was disappointed a lot… “Moonnazis”- this word immediately triggers associations in your mind. Like a perfect Grindhouse trailer. But as full-length feature it runs out of steam. Iron Sky offers you perfectly animated space fights, a fondly designed swastika shaped moon base, “Reichsflugscheiben” (Nazi UFOs) and Nazi space suits. The technique is up to date, but the story is weirdly vintage and the humor is surprisingly gentle. While the Nazis in the movie are more or less comic characters (with only one main connection to their NS history- the Hitler salute) in steam punk fascist design with world-domination-image-neurosis, the US of A with a Sarah Palin lookalike female president and her evil genius PR assistant (longing for WWIII to ensure re-election) appear more like an arch-villain than the “Moonnazis”. In an Obama era this couple seems a bit outdated…
  To be acid-tongued Iron Sky lacks a connection to the present or to the real NS history. Maybe it just simply lacks of subversive diabolicalness. Instead the movie is full with references and quotes which makes it funny somehow but only because you already laughed about the originals…
  A priori the Finish-German-Australian co production lost during the long time period a lot of the anarchistic humor of the original idea. Iron Sky is professionalized to death- consensus jokes and an aesthetic appeal for the whole galaxy. This might rock the box office but definitely not the trash movie fans. Milky way mainstream… And in a world that is getting more and more extreme maybe a wrong message to the wrong people.