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Reviews
Epikindynes mageirikes (2010)
what a waste of money......
OK, this is exactly the kind of "film" that gives Greek cinema a bad name. It is the director's first attempt in cinema (he has been directing TV serials since the 80s) and its clear from the very first moment that he is no Adrian Lynn. The film's hyper-glossy look makes you wonder if you are watching a movie or a TV commercial for some spaghetti sauce. The story is just TV bullshit- there is nothing special in it to warrant a theatrical release. That is exactly what Greek commercial cinema is today- TV movies that get released in theaters. Not to mention how expensive they are! What a waste of money.... such a shame. The cast also consists of television actors that are mostly talking nonsense and trying to look cool and sexy... This is not supposed to be exactly a comedy but the whole audience was laughing out loud during the screening... Its a shame that films like this are being made in this country.. And even more shameful is the fact that some people actually pay their hard-earned money to watch such crap.
Ki an fygo... tha xanartho (2005)
A waste of time.
Greek cinema is such a painful issue. I believe that Greek filmmakers are capable of great things but have to fight against many odds in order to achieve them. First of all, they have to start making movies that people are going to care about. Does anybody care about the story or the characters of this movie? It is a situation that many have experienced but it lacks the intensity that will make anybody care.
Stankoglou is an ex-con who arrives at a village and starts developing an attraction to Maria Kehagioglou (I Psyhi Sto Stoma), a married woman. Meletis Georgiadis (To Kako) plays the jealous husband. This attraction never really leads to anything but the couple is planning to escape and the jealous husband is getting more and more suspicious.
I didn't get any deeper meaning- if there was any. This is a love story that would have worked better if it was made for television because I really don't believe anybody would pay their hard-earned money to see something like this on the big screen. This is not silly or badly-made like the awful TV dramas but still, it lacks the special/imaginative elements that a cinephile would appreciate.
The leads are decent although the guest stars steal the show. The director of "Spirtokouto", Yianis Economides and its stars Costas Xikominos and Erikos Litsis are the only reasons for anybody to watch this.
Dora Masklavanou started as an actress in the films of master Nikos Nikolaidis (Singapore Sling) and then switched to directing. One would expect much, much more from somebody as experienced as her. Try harder next time ms. Masklavanou.
Agrypnia (2005)
Bad cop/Good priest?
The Wake is the story of two brothers that re-unite after many years, thanks to a misfortune. Vangelis Mourikis (The King) is a cop that has committed an unspeakable act and has to get of of his country immediately. His brother (M. Tsourounakis) is a priest and wishes to live away from his family. The cop has only one night to find a way to leave the city and the priest is forced to help him.
The Wake is a night road movie, following the two brothers through the dirty city and depicting the change of their relationship within a few hours. They are symbols of power and religion but they are definitely no saints. Nikos Gramatikos once again depicts the darker sides of these symbols- make sure you watch his earlier film "O Vasilias".
"Greek Al Pacino" Vangelis Mourikis is always interesting to watch because he plays each one of his roles differently. He does not choose the easy way out. This film earned him one more acting award for his collection. It is a shame that Tsourounakis is nowhere as good as his co-star because his character is screaming for a better/more convincing/less stiff performance. His acting is very weak as he has the same facial expression throughout the whole film. The director of "I Psyhi Sto Stoma/Soul Kicking" Yianis Economides also has a brief role- he is such a natural and should be acting more often.
This is the first Greek film shot in HD and the results are notable. Gramatikos creates a few really beautiful long shots of boats and industrial areas in the opening sequences. Most of the film takes place at night, managing to create a suitable atmosphere, combined with the hand-held cinematography.
"Agrypnia" is a good film that could have been tighter/more intense in terms of story-telling. It also needed a stronger co-star next to Mourikis. But still, it is one of the most interesting Greek films of the last few years.
O kipos tou Theou (1994)
An obscure gem directed by Takis Spyridakis.
After becoming one of Greece's most important cinema actors, Takis Spyridakis attempts to direct- with brilliant results.
Spyridakis depicts the suffocating way of life behind bars, dealing with issues such as friendship and human pain. Garden of God won five awards in its screening at the Thesaloniki Film Festival. However, its cruel depiction of the Greek prison system, never allowed it to rise above the underground circuit: It only played at one theater for a very limited amount of time. It never got a video or DVD release.
The visual style of the film is very dark and very dirty- whoever discovered those locations deserves an award. I am not sure how they managed to make a 90s movie look so old- forget the polished look of this era's cinema. The riot sequence is wild and realistic- awesome stuff. It is more than obvious that Spyridakis was deeply influenced by the style of Nikolaidis (he took part in two of his most important films, as an actor). The film suffers from bad sound (as many other Greek productions do) but, in a strange way, this adds something to it. Keep in mind it was a low budget film.
If the story was easier to follow, we'd be talking about a masterpiece. But the cast is special (a young Vangelis Mourikis and Spyridakis himself as prisoners) and the director's imaginative look make it irresistible.
O gios tou Tsarly (2008)
An American Gangster who cannot speak English: Interesting.
I caught this film's screening at the Greek cult film festival. I was shocked and amazed to see such a movie being made in Greece, today. Greece has no tradition in gangster films, let alone films featuring 70-year old stars in "Tony Montana wannabe" roles.
OK, lets start with the direction and the photography: There are hardly any well-composed shots in the film, just hand-held camera work that fails to create any suspense or realism. The director has some potential (we have seen far worse out there) but doesn't seem to be making a serious effort or displaying any imagination at all. The photography is often so dark that does not allow the viewer to tell what is going on in some of the night sequences. Charlie's Son looks like one of those shitty straight-to-VHS movies of the 1980s.
The story and screenplay- total rubbish and full of plot holes. No balance between the characters and no development. Charlie's character is stupid and one-dimensional with constant yelling and cursing. The dialog (and a few unnecessary monologues) is painfully bad. There even some lines that are trying to be funny (in the Tarantino way) and the results are disastrous.
The acting is bad beyond belief... Georgitsis in his 70s won't convince anybody as a ruthless, murderous, dope-dealing gangster. Specially when he is constantly overacting, cursing and screaming, speaking really bad English and even having a hilarious sex scene with Katia O Wallis- the female lead who is also unbelievably BAD... Kostas Voutsas is so old and fat that he cannot even speak, let alone move. Giannopoulos and Athina Papa are the only good actors in the movie but even they have some really bad and fake moments- blame it on the director. The supporting cast delivers terrible performances as well. The guy who plays the title character has the same, stupid facial expression throughout the whole movie.
It seems that Charlie's Son is trying to be a little bit of everything: A bit of Tarantino, a bit of 80s video rubbish, a bit of Scarface, a bit of "Spirtokouto". It could only work as a revival of the 80s video rubbish. If you see it from such a point of view, it can be fun. That is why i am giving it 3/10.
PS: Shame on the makers for including footage from John Woo's THE KILLER.
Kala krymmena mystika, Athanasia (2008)
A waste of money and talent.
You probably know already what this film is about so I am not going to bother with the story. It is supposed to be based on true facts but I don't think this is enough to convince anybody to watch it. Athanasia is a really boring and cliché-ridden melodrama, similar to thousands of stories that the TV serials tell. Giorgos Karamichos is not so convincing here and makes me wonder why he is even considered to be a good actor. Vangelis Mourikis who is probably Greece's finest actor of today, is wasted here. You have to be a total hack (talentless filmmaker) to have somebody like Mourikis taking part in your film and wasting him like that. The cinematography is kind of flat too- would look great for a television movie but leaves much to be desired since this is a feature film. This is better than rubbish such as Soula Ela Xana or Alter Ego but still doesn't mean much. It is a film that will appeal to old people so you can probably suggest it to your mom or grandma to watch. I give it 2 stars thanks to Mourikis and thanks to some well-composed shots.
I triti nyhta (2003)
Total lack of tension...
A plane flying from Alexandroupolis to Athens disappears from the radars on a summer night. It is thought to have fallen in the ocean. Alki (Katerina Tsavalou), a 16-year old girl, is expecting her father for her birthday celebration. Her mother got married to her former husband's best friend and collaborator, shortly after the divorce. Another woman, Athina (Dimitra Hatoupi) has just given birth to a child and expects the father to show up. Danai, a young girl is expecting Konstantinos to take a long trip with him. The finale (which takes place on the 3rd night of the story) will reveal how these apparently unrelated persons are connected.
Director Dimitris Panayiotatos was always fascinated by thrillers, a genre that is sadly missing from Greek cinema. His filmography consists of mild erotic and mystery features that never enjoyed any success. The problem is that Panayiotatos' works were always compromised in order to satisfy both art-house and thriller/fantasy audiences. His attempted mixture never worked as his movies were always too lighthearted for the thriller and horror audiences and too weird for the art-house audiences.
This is also the case with THE THIRD NIGHT, a film which tries to sell itself as a mystery thriller but is actually a slow-moving art-house film which lacks the tension and the shocks a thriller needs. Total lack of tension: this is the main flaw of the movie. Characters endlessly discussing situations the director never bothers to depict (the plane crash for example) - this is another serious problem. The females are sexy (often appearing in swimming suits) but there isn't the slightest hint at sex here. The twist ending hardly comes as a surprise after the utter boredom of the first 75 minutes. THE THIRD NIGHT lacks all the commercial elements that could have made it a success, or at least an interesting movie. Panayiotatos' picture flopped and its no wonder he hasn't directed anything since. The cast members (mostly television actors) deliver performances that range from lousy to passable and fail to make the viewer care about the characters. Panayiotatos directs competently although that is hardly enough to make the picture interesting. Overall, THE THIRD NIGHT looks and feels like a television movie and it would have probably worked better that way. Greece needs uncompromising and adventurous filmmakers in order to put itself on the fantasy cinema map. Next please
Dekapentavgoustos (2001)
Giannaris' weakest effort...
This is a pretty complicated film so I don't know where to start from.
It is the story of 3 different families living in the same building and leaving Athens to go on vacation. On the same day. The title day. Virgin Mary's celebration. Things get a bit more complicated when a thief enters the building. The main idea behind the movie isn't bad at all. Problem is that Dekapentavgoustos often gets too dramatic, specially with the subplot of the sick little girl. Not to mention her parents and her stupid fat brother- all of them annoying characters. Giannaris is supposed to be depicting reality in his films but I believe he kind of lost it here. Why? Let's see: The family goes on vacation and the little sick girl gets lost. First couple: They run over an old lady- afterwards the girl (Theodora Tzimou) nearly gets drowned. Second couple: they take a hitcher on the car with them (Papadopoulos, leading actor in Omiros and From The Edge Of The City). He screws the girl, then steals the guy's money and leaves. Sure, these things do happen but its hard for anybody to believe all of them can happen to these related persons at the exact same time.... Actually the film managed to keep me interested for the first 65 minutes or so. After that, I stopped caring due to the melodramatic situations and the scene where the thief finds some girl in the street and gets involved with her. The ending sucked as well, sorry.
Oh I forgot to mention the "controversial" scene of the movie where the thief puts on a wedding dress and make-up. That was rubbish and was totally unnecessary, sorry. Homosexual obsessions of a homosexual filmmaker....
Theodora Tzimou has done better in some of her other works- her performance in the scene where she talks to her secret boyfriend on the phone is pretty bad. The fat TV-oriented actress who plays the sick girl's mother was horrible as well. Unlike Gianis Oikonomidis, Giannaris was never a director who went for perfection when it came to acting.
Visually, this is certainly the director's finest movie, you can tell he has a bigger budget this time and the cinematography is flawless. However, it is obvious that he is trying to make the movie look more mainstream this time as it lacks the raw, hand-held camera style of APO TIN AKRI TIS POLIS and OMIROS.
The music score had lots in common with the one in APO TIN AKRI... but it was less interesting.
Overall, I believe this movie is the director's weakest. It takes more than great visual style to make a great movie.
Brutal (2006)
so bad it gets "brutal"
4 guys kidnap a girl in order to ask her father for ransom. they take her to a basement where they start killing each instead of doing nasty things to her.
Story/script: As the director himself admits, there was no screenplay for this and this is more than obvious. Sequences that never end, endless swearing (as if anybody will be impressed) and badly executed fight scenes between the guys.
Acting: Horrible. The director stars once again and is bad beyond belief with an annoying Northern accent. The rest are also bad, including some old guy who is probably the director's dad. Since there was no script the cast obviously had to improvise. problem is none of the actors is good enough to do that and the results are... bad.
Direction, etc: No direction. My grandma could probably do better if somebody told her to grab a mini-DV camcorder and start filming random stuff. Camera work is so shaky and photography is so bad you can hardly see what is going on. poor locations. horrible editing job. picture quality is so low its hard to believe and this looks no better the average home video that a 10-year old kid would make. Special effects are lame to say the least.
sound/Music: sound is so badly recorded you can hardly hear what the "actors" are saying. music is death metal. The director is obviously a fan of that kind of music and never misses a chance to show us. At least you can bang your head while watching.
result: a total waste of time, this pathetic excuse of a movie that has the nerve to call itself "snuff" for commercial reasons. problem here is that "Brutal" is unwatchable. This mini-DV abomination looks like the work of somebody who has absolutely no clue on cinema and film making.
To kako (2005)
To Kako = Bad!
OK, i wont even bother with the story. you probably know what this is about. it is quite poor and keep in mind this piece of garbage is coming from a new "filmmaker" who had the nerve to call Romero's Land Of The Dead an "Ok b-movie" and admit their favorite film is The Blues Brothers!!! If that is the case then what should we call this one? a Z-movie perhaps? The only good actor is Meletis Georgiadis while the rest suck badly. Very bad "actors", so bad they are hard to believe. But its wouldn't be fair to blame everything on them- the lines they had to deliver were pretty stupid to begin with, so at least thats an excuse. Lame humor, really, really lame. Humor in this film will only make retarded people laugh, really. Jackson did it successfully in Braindead, the difference is that he is a filmmaker while Nousias or whatever he is called, is a talentless hack. Very bad Mtv-style direction, cinematography that hardly allows you to see what is going on in the night scenes, you get the picture. Some decent effects here and there are ruined by the incompetence of the director. And the music score is so bad that just makes you want to stop watching. Its the most annoying music score in recent years.
This is still quality stuff compared to the movies of Macabro Films/F. Halatsis but that still isn't saying much!
Razor (2007)
defines the word "garbage"
OK, I really don't know where to start with this one. It is incredibly bad. So bad its not even funny.
Its about 6 couples that go to spend a weekend at a house in order to have sex and fun. Typical story with the "director/producer" desperately trying to cash in on the renewed "slasher" trend. The introduction tries to let us know the names of each person but viewers have forgotten after a couple of minutes anyway since these annoying characters are just there to die. The movie goes on with ENDLESS (badly filmed and paced) sequences of them having sex, eating, pissing and shaving. There are also a few totally fake "torture" sequences that hard to seat through. Not because they are disturbing but because they are badly filmed, in MTV fashion.
Yes, this director must be obsessed with MTV with his constant hand-held camera work and quick editing. I bet he doesn't even own a tripod. Perhaps the guy would be suitable for music videos but he should really quit making movies....
The "music score" is garbage as well, with BAD metal songs with growling vocals....
The acting is bad beyond belief, not to mention the Greek actors deliver their (few) lines in English with a horrible accent. Perhaps the maker thought he could possibly sell this to foreign markets???? In the US they got films like HOSTEL! What makes the "producer" think anybody there would be interested in this amateurish piece of garbage that looks like a cheap, home-made porn video?
Oh, there are also "inspired" lines of dialog such as "I will F*^% you!" - I would be surprised if anybody told me the screenplay for this movie actually was longer than 5 pages! This looks like it was shot in less than a week. The whole movie is shot inside a (bad-looking) house and each scene lasts for TOO LONG. In order for the movie to be long enough to be a "feature" and not a short.
This can only appeal to 5-year old children or retarded people, really. I have seen lots of horror films, even bad ones, but this one... it is just unwatchable.