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Reviews
Paradise (2023)
Sham Scam Thank You Ma'm
This Netflix movie is a sham, a deceptive package. It pretends to be an interesting socio-critical study of the future in the science fiction genre, however it touches this subject in the first 15 minutes of the movie, then forgets about it. After that it frays into a dull thriller plot, which is poorly executed and rather boring.
The movie is superficial and never ever takes his intended theme seriously, it only exploits it, if even. Basically, it's about a future in which rich people buy the lifetime of poor people (sounds familiar? Justin Timberlake sends his regards "In Time"). Sadly enough, this interesting premise is quickly dropped completely. After all, you could be stepping on the toes of the Netflix shareholders, and you don't want to do that, right? Or even other californian tech-enterpreneurs, who are famous for financing startups that plan to extend human lifespan at an extreme costs (only accessible for the richest of the rich, of course), and are probably friends with Hastings & Co.
No, the rich and the famous time buyers are left untouched. Instead, the film leads into a really dull kidnapping story resulting in a chase, first over land, then over sea, then over land again, finally ending in a dark cold hotel somewhere deep in the Lithuanian forest, where the protagonists then mumble those typical German moral dialogues into their sad faces.
In the final act, the writers finally seem to have run out of ideas: there is a completely pointless shoot-out (action scenes for the trailer, as ordered by Netflix). This is followed by one or two plot twists from your standard guide for beginners in screenwriting, as can be found in your next Walmart store. Twists that have zero coherence with the characters.
The characters follow the plot, not the other way round; they are mere compliant slaves of the plot. How the makers of this mediocre work could actually believe that modern viewers would go along this kind of infantil mockery is a mystery to me.
To sum it up: does anyone remember those DVD/VHS covers of cheap B-Pictures from the 90s, with those funny collages of fiery explosions, muscular heroes with big guns and sexy long-legged girls in high heels? And then you watched the movie, and it was just low-budget garbage of guys with mustaches, fighting each other in stone pits or in the desert, C-grade actors running around to cheap music, with a plot that didn't make any sense? That's "paradise", just with a budget of 10 Million Dollars. A hollow package with a sugar coating.
Soulless entertainment for the low-income masses who can't afford a cinema ticket.
But hey Netflix, wake up: even they will be annoyed and feel ripped off, even they won't recommend their friends to buy a Netflix subscription after this. After all, you stole their lifetime! And they ain't getting it back, unlike the skinny woman in the movie.
When you bought that B-Picture VHS cassette seduced by the cover, your money was gone, the producers had it, said thank you and bought another red or black Chevy Corvette with it, to go for a ride with their pimp friends. That scam worked.
With the subscription system, it won't go down like that. Nobody ain't gonna subscribe nothing 'cos of some fake covers.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
Dubious movie enthralled by its own violence
All Quiet follows a teenager named Paul Bäumer (played by Felix Kammerer), who, along with his classmates, is swept up in the fervor of World War I and voluntarily joins the German army. The story documents a brutal alchemy: The young soldiers' nationalist zeal turns into horror and disillusionment as they witness extreme, pointless violence.
Yet, ironically, the film itself seems to be more enthralled by that violence than by the emotional development of its characters. Unlike its 1930 predecessor, which won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, Edward Berger's All Quiet skimps on human drama. Its slew of awards and nominations-specifically for adapted screenplay and visual effects-celebrate the very areas where the film falters. The original novel offers timeless meditations on not only the graphic trenches of war but also the psychological battles that follow. "This book," Remarque writes in the epigraph, "will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." Berger's adaptation, however lauded on the awards circuit, misunderstands that tricky balance, leaning into the spectacle of combat and neglecting its more complex, less flashy aftermath.
For one, the film isn't interested in carrying any soldiers off the battlefield. Consider the fate of Paul's squadmate Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer): About halfway through the movie, an assailant sets Albert ablaze with a flamethrower. Albert crawls desperately toward a shallow pool of filthy water, where he's shot in front of Paul. The scene's theatrics are played up with smoke-and-fire effects, including a close-up of Albert's lifeless body engulfed in crackling flames-the precise kind of gratuitousness the Academy tends to favor. (There's a reason the German tabloid Bild criticized the film as an example of so-called Oscar-Geilheit, or "Oscar horniness.")
The moment is just one of several clumsy departures from the novel, where Albert must have one of his legs amputated but doesn't die; he's instead sent off to be fitted for a prosthetic.
He emerges from war as a traumatized, despondent version of himself, struggling, like so many soldiers, to reintegrate into society.
Significantly altering Albert's narrative-opting for a straightforward death rather than a subtler story of survival-helps cement the film as standard blockbuster fare, chock-full of fights and whiz-bang stunts but bereft of genuine emotional punch.
Another war movie masked as an anti-war movie.
The East (2013)
Good but difficult to get attached
I couldn't really get into it because the people of the group seemed so detached, so flat. Far away, somehow. Everybody seemed so depressed.
The whole atmosphere seemed so dreamlike. Fairy tale. Slow.
I have been in such places, with such people. Idealists, they fight, they suffer, they struggle, they scream. They burn for their beliefs. They show emotions. When they party, they party hard. They smoke and drink (and live in the city, by the way, not in the forest).
Here these people they are so ... mellow. Not really into it. And, you don't get really close to them. The acting was okay, but not supreme. The guy telling about the death of his sister... I didn't buy it. I didn't feel it. I didn't care.
(There has never been an antibiotic with such severe side effects, in like one out of ten people, and if so, it would have been taken off the market quickly.)
The group came across more as a secte, than as eco-fighters.
Brit Marling in the beginning - it's so obvious that she's an agent. The straight hair! No tattoos, no piercings ... much too clean. Too healthy. Too beautiful. A spheric angel. Girls in that scene wear dreadlocks. And they don't look like models. Her cover would have blown quickly.
So, the lack of realism was a problem for me.
Still, it's an interesting movie and important to watch, inspiring.
303 (2018)
All in one
A heartwarming lovestory. Breathtaking landscapes. Witty dialogues. A captivating musical score.
It's a long time since I left a cinema so satisfied. Lifetime not wasted.