hand-eti Reviews

Bennie Brat (2011)

The perfect Dutch family movie.

[10/10 · 5 December 2013]

Something very is odd is up with that 5.5 score on IMDb. We see it with a lot of non-American movies - there are people randomly giving 1 point to movies in order to influence voting for whatever reason.

In reality, this is one of the best Dutch family movies. It has all the traditional Sinterklaas ingredients and gives it a very funny twist with the naughty kids hung in bags in the ship.

I assume the movie will not really appeal to a non-Dutch audience since all major ingredients are vital to one of the main Dutch holidays but unknown abroad: the steamship from Spain, Sinterklaas and his Pieten, the pepernoten (gingerbread cookies), etcetera... it's all just as plausible as Santa and his flying reindeer, and just as real to our children.

The movie also provides an explanation as to why Sinterklaas stopped shipping naughty children to Spain.

For any Dutch family, this movie is a must-see. People without kids, or who aren't Dutch, may still appreciate the scenic settings, the winter atmosphere and the good acting.

Bobby en de geestenjagers (2013)

Delightful family movie.

[9/10 · 17 February 2013]

This is a delightful family movie. The subject is quite surprising for a children's movie: it is about ghosts who are haunting a ship and a ghostbuster who does not actually chase ghosts, but tries to accompany them into the afterlife where they belong.

The acting is brilliant. All characters - certainly all the ghost - slightly overact but remain convincing enough. In the beginning they look like Addams family copies, but in the course of the movie they all become actual persons with feelings of their own.

The movie is sometimes a bit scary and is not suitable for children under six (it actually has a "6" rating in Holland) but since the ghosts belong to the 'good guys' (the antagonist a second ghostbuster who uses less friendly methods) the movie never gets really scary.

During part of the movie the audience can see the ghosts, but the other characters in the movie cannot. This was done most convincingly. The special effects are also surprisingly good, because there is some walking-through-walls of course.

The movie is mainly a comedy with some suspense, but it also touches ons some more serious subjects such as life and death, accepting your situation and interpersonal relationships.

All in all a great movie to bring your kids to, because it is very enjoyable for a mature audience as well.

Leven en dood van Quidam Quidam (1999– )

SF and political satire. Quite exceptional, and exceptionally good.

[10/10 · 10 September 2012]

A Dutch feature series that's science fiction and political satire at the same time. That sounds quite unlikely but there is one such series: Quidam Quidam!

If only we could get this on DVD, watch it online, download it... but unfortunately the series got almost no attention and was forgotten quickly. For me, it still counts among the best TV productions ever made in Holland, and I would love to see it again.

The future as portrayed in this series is not very bright at all. But we are 10 years down the road and the general mood in our country has not improved. Xenophobe parties have government influence, social security is being privatized if not abolished - the things this TV series show are somewhat over the top, but not even that much.

Een tip van de sluier (1980)

Men looking for women who are looking for themselves.

[10/10 · 2 July 2012]

One of the most obscure works of famous documentary maker Frans Bromet meticulously captures the zeitgeist of 1980, draws a conclusion that may be completely off or spot-on, and leaves the viewer in complete uncertainty about what he just watched. Is it a documentary? Is it all scripted? Who will ever know?

In 1980, divorce was the talk of the town. All around you, people started to divorce, and the maker of the movie claims that he fears it will happen to his own marriage as well.

In order to prevent this, he must know why women would want to divorce, so he places an ad and picks one out of a bunch of divorced women, in order to do in-depth interviews with her and find out.

From there on, everything goes wrong. Or does it? Is the lady in the movie as evil as Bromet starts to think, or is it all a pose? Is Bromet actually such a clumsy filmmaker who can't get through to his subject (he normally isn't) or is his behaviour a statement on the faults of man in the war of the sexes?

And what's with that basement with all those labeled doors? If that bit is fiction, are the sessions behind those doors fiction as well, or are those for real?

It looks like we will never know, but it is a movie that gives you a lot to think about. If you ever see it, which I doubt, because it is very hard to find and I don't think it was ever translated.

Living Out Loud (2009 TV Movie)

Very mediocre. So mediocre that it's quite bad, really.

[3/10 · 16 September 2011]

The main issue with this movie is that it is totally uninspired. They had to do a movie on the subject of breast cancer, so the movie looks like they made a checklist of issues that must be discussed - Chemo? check. Wigs? check. Oh, and we need a moral lessen. Let's do "go through hard times and end up stronger and wiser". Okay, that's it. Now, write a quick script that neatly fills in all these slots and let's get going. Done! The lady is so obviously a default 40something year old lady in a suburb, her husband the average yuppie, the kids are default teenage daughter and school age kid, there is nothing that makes them even remote human.

And I find it appalling that they manage to make a whole movie about breast cancer without showing a single breast. This movie is not there to break taboos but to enforce them. If they really wanted to create some understanding among the viewers, they should have shown the result of the mastectomy instead of going through all sorts of lengths to hide it (And no, there would have been nothing sexual about that).

Most of the dialogs are like the rest of the movie - mediocre. Nondescript. But the script writers had serious problems giving the children some decent lines. In order to portray their problems in dealing with the situation, they let them say horrible things such as 'my friends won't have to see you bold, will they?' as a first reaction to mom losing her hair. (Why mom didn't tell them she was going to lose her hair is a mystery to me anyway).

But okay, if you like to sob and be sure the end is uplifting, go ahead and watch it. It's only 90 minutes of your life wasted, so it's no big deal.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011)

Appalling pulp.

[1/10 · 17 March 2011]

I was truly amazed to see that this gets 9,2 at IMDb, I was expecting 3,2 or something. It is really one of the most appalling shows I have seen. The only thing that is done professionally is blood splattering around in slow motion. For the rest it is pure garbage.

The acting is basically absent. People appear to read lines of semi-ancient English from autocue or, more frequently, they just grunt. The story is about herds of gladiators killing each other, and their masters also killing each other. With some sex thrown in for good measure. The language verges on the absurd, with all the faux ancient English with four letters words thrown in.

I can understand some people would still want to watch this. I can only watch it for a laugh, except it's not funny for more than one minute.

Eep! (2010)

Your kids will love it. You will, too

[10/10 · 26 October 2010]

It is a shame that this film was marketed as a children's movie, because it has a double layer and is just as enjoyable for grown-ups as for children. The story is quickly told: An elderly couple finds a girl with wings instead of arms. The man, a birdwatcher, insists that it is a bird, but his wife has motherly feelings for the creature and insists it is a child. What it really is, we will never know, but she sure has a lot of bird-like features, and when fall comes, she has an urge to fly south. The growing group people that go on a chase to find her eventually all come to terms with their own issues.

Children will love the cuteness of the little bird girl and the adventurous storyline, but grownups enjoy the fantastic dialogs and the absurdity of the situations, that reminds some of the best Van Warmerdam films (without having the same gloomy atmosphere).

This is the first Dutch film ever where the director had here name taken off the credits (the director is now 'Ellen Smits', Alan Smithee's Dutch sister), because 15 minutes were cut out of the film without the director's permission. I don't know if this was a good decision. Fact is that the whole pace of the movie is rather slow. If some action scenes were cut out, this was a bad decision, but if the deleted scenes were more static and introspective, it may have actually been a good decision. Of course I would love to see the deleted scenes, but unfortunately they are not included in the DVD.

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Loose ends.

[8/10 · 19 September 2010]

This movie starts off as mediocre, slowly grows more interesting and then throws it all away. Things that are started don't end, things that end are never started. You're just screaming for the unexisting part 2 after seeing this movie.

It starts as a typical high school drama about two kids who are bullied. All clichés are there, except it's in a rural setting, not in the city.

But it gradually shifts to being a movie about a boy and a girl exploring a fantasy world where they battle trolls that are symbolic for their problems in real life, and thus learn to cope with them. In such a movie the last thing you're going to need is one of the two suddenly dying at two thirds in the movie. From that moment on, the whole magic of gaining strength through imagination, which was what made the film good, is gone, and we are left with some sort of lame tearjerker.

If they wanted to make it really dramatic, they should have showed her death and give it a place in the movie. They didn't. He comes home and learns that she's dead, and that's it.

Since the whole movie was about 2 kids growing up and conquering their fears together, you're simply not going to accept that she's really dead. You know she has somehow disappeared into this magical kingdom that's the realm of the two youths, and he'll have to go and rescue her. But that never happens. The film just end, while the viewer is waving at the screen: 'Hello, you forgot something! She's not really dead! He has to go and rescue her!' But no, he has not learned to stand up for himself and his friend and to be strong and brave and get her back - in the end of the story all he has learned, apparently, is to be nice to his little sister.

Oh, and the scenes about the church and discussions about God sending her to hell or not have no place in this movie and should all have been left out.

Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001 TV Movie)

Surreal, over the top and very impressive.

[10/10 · 22 October 2009]

I just got a copy of the DVD from a second hand store and watched it without ever having heard of it. It is brilliant! Of course it is not a 90 minute remake of the classic fairy tale. It is certainly not a children's movie either.

The makers of this movie just let their imagination run wild and every single move is surprising and any idea that was really too much was happily included in the movie. You'll be smiling from the beginning to the end.

And you'll get three fairy tales for the price of one - the main storyline of the Snow Queen (Andersen) and a theme from Snow White and Rose Red (Grimm) are included as well.

Quiet Chaos (2008)

Not bad. Quite interesting but a few things weren't necessary.

[7/10 · 11 September 2008]

Nanni Moretti is not playing his neurotic self this time but he is quite convincing as a man who can't deal with his emotions at all. The good thing about the movie is that all little story lines keep on spinning around him and seem to go nowhere in the end.

Just a few things put me off. I don't know if it was necessary to make the person a top manager. He doesn't seem the type to hold that sort of position. And the symbolism of the reversibility of palindromes is a bit cheesy and over the top.

But the thing that really put me down is that one sex scene. There is nothing wrong with it in itself but it does not fit in this movie at all. The whole atmosphere changes, it is as if the movie stops, the sex scene starts, and when it's over the movie starts again. Not convincing at all.

Children of Wax (2007)

Appalling.

[1/10 · 7 November 2006]

I sincerely wonder why this film was ever made. A Bulgarian-Italian co-production set in a version of Berlin where all Germans speak English with a German accent and all Turks speak English with some Turkish words in between, is hardly credible. The English vocabulary is basically limited to "fuck you, bastard" and the acting is worse than anyone can imagine. Apart from this, racial tensions in Germany can be an interesting subject but in the Germany I know there are no gangs shooting each other in the middle of the street in clear daylight. And if all that is not enough, there is also a serial killer going around who kills Turkish children and paints them white. In order to create some tension, we see the serial killer and hear him hum Schubert's lullaby but we won't see his face.

I don't even believe they actually shot it in Germany. There are some street shots that are quite obviously in Berlin, but the actors are not seen in those shot. It's probably Bulgaria with some German signs added here and there.