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Marie-Antoinette * Sofia Coppola * 2006

Sofia Coppola made a costume-drama this time. The story is about the Viennese girl who is given in marriage to the future king Louis XVI of France and who became queen at the age of 19. Marie-Antoinette is played by the beautiful Kirsten Dunst who also appeared in Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides” (1999). The film became a slightly typical historical costume film, but of course Coppola gave her own twist to the genre. Major stress on weird Versaille etiquette around ‘dressing the queen’ and the royal breakfast, but most earcatching is the ‘strange’ choice of music. Not just Renaissance sounds, but poprock, for example at a masked ball. Coppola managed very well to show the unavoidable end of the young kings (death by the guillotine, not shown in the film) because of the insecure reign of the king and the queen’s extreme spendings which both made the national debt extremely high. At the same time the country fell in poverty for which (not totally unfounded) the king and queen were blamed. On the other side, Coppola shows the apparent innocence of the beautiful queen, the fact that she is blamed for much that went wrong and the way she tried to maintain far away from her family and friends. The film is catching and I felt for the queen, while she was obviously not too smart in her decisions. “Marie-Antoinette” may indeed be a bit of a ‘ladies film’ (by and for women), but I really enjoyed this original history lesson with magnificent stages, costumes, acting, filming and montage. <14/7/06><4>

Lost Highway * David Lynch (1997)

Damn! Did i forget to review the best film ever? Damn! I saw it 4 times in the cinema when it played here in 1997, later I bought the video and a while ago the DVD. “Lost Highway” is completely Lynch. Dark (VERY dark I may say), strange, symbolic and ununderstandable. There are two stories that either follow eachother up or run (partly) synchronical. Especially one person being in both stories raises and answers questions. There is a story of a saxophoneplayer who meets a strange oriental person and who may or may not have killed his own wife. Also there is a story about a young car-service man who is very popular with the women, but ran into the wrong person, being the girlfriend of an extremely rich, influential and most of all insane criminal.

Anyway, the little you know about this film when you haven’t seen it, the better. As more of Lynches works “Lost Highway” is more of an atmosphere picture than a film that you can watch and enjoy. Most people don’t like it, others love it.

Mein Bruder, Der Vampir * Sven Taddicken * 2001

A German drama that I saw on the German TV without subtitles. I couldn’t exactly follow everything, but still. This film is about a girl and her autistic brother. The brother gets 30 and thinks he is “der Fürst der Finsternis” (the prince of darkness). With his sister he watches their brother and her girlfriend and the two figure out that it is time for their first sexual experience. “Der Vampir” falls for his brothers girlfriend and his sister on a girllike gangster who she tries to impress. Both plans do not run too smoothly and neither of the two gets the experience they want.
Not too great, but alright to see when it is on TV.

The Man Who Wasn’t There * Joel and Ethan Coen * 2001

“Murder, blackmail and dry-cleaning. Enter the mind of a barber”. Of of the better taglines of late, what do you think? A new film by the brothers Coen who came in the spotlights with their films “Fargo” (1996), “The Big Lebowski” (1998) and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000). Not the most typical films with a pleasent sense of humour and strange stories. The three films are not much alike and I can’t compare “The Man…” with any of them either. What IS the same as with especially “Fargo” is that this isn’t a comedy in basis, but still “The Man…” is very funny at times.

Anyway, the story in short is as follows. Ed (Billy Bob Thornton) has lived his entire life on the background. He married his wife Doris (Frances Macdonmand, the policewoman in “Fargo”) only a few weeks after having met her totally drunk at a party (which he doesn’t like). She thought it was “appropriate” and she liked it that he doesn’t talk much. Having a not too firy relationship the two stick together just because it has been like that for years. Doris works for a man with a large warehouse doing administration and her boss and his wife are friends of the house. Ed works at the barbershop of a brother of his wife who got the place from his father. Ed doesn’t like the work much, but heh, he has been there for years. Then in the shop, Ed meets a crook (played by Jol Polito) who was dumped by his potential partner for starting a dry-cleaning company (the story plays in the 1950’ies, nobody heard of dry-cleaning). Ed thinks that this could cheer-up his life a little, so he thinks of a plan. He blackmails his wife’s boss, because he knows these two have an affair. Big Dave (James Gandolfini) asks for advice from Ted he and he thinks that Tolliver (the crook – Jon Polito) is the blackmailer, so Tolliver’s original partner was Doris’ boss and Ed’s ‘friend’! Big Dave uses money from his business which actually is owned by his wife’s father and uses Doris for the administrative trick. Later he finds out about Ed, Ed accidentally kills Big Dave and Doris is suspected and caught. Anyway, the story keeps twisting and twisting and keeps interesting for the full two hours.

A funny thing is that the film is in colour when you rent it and black and white when you buy it. It is placed in the 50’ies with ever-smoking men and over-typical women and Ed is main character and voice-over.

Another wonderfull film by the Coen brothers.

Magnolia * Paul Thomas Andersson * 1999

It has been a while since I first saw this film, but it was already on video when I did. I thought I didn’t have to see a film with Tom Cruise who wasn’t exactly my favourite actor. When I did see it, I was pretty impressed. Not only Tom Cruise is really great in this film (and not as much present as I expected), but overall this is a wonderfull film.

“Magnolia” has different stories of different people and the stories either or not come together. Not a line that you never read in my reviews, right? Well, Magnolia was -as I remember- on of the first films who worked with this concept and worked it out well. There are stories of different people in the worst periods of their lives. You will see a dying old man, Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) being watched over by the nurse Phil Parma (Philip Hoffman). Then there is Earl’s totally stressed out and way too young second wife Linda Partridge (Juliane Moore) who got totally depressed when her husband dies and when she realises how she treated him. Tom Cruise plays a great part as Frank Mackey who gives workshop to men to learn them to rule over women. Frank is Earls son and the two haven’t met in many years. Then there is a good Christian cop called Jim Kurring (John Reilly), who meets the drug-addicted Claudia Gator (Melora Walter) who on her turn is the daughter of quiz-master Jimmy Gater (Philip Hall), but they have a very bad contact since Claudia thinks that her father abused her in her childhood, while Jimmy (who is dying of cancer) doesn’t remember that. There are stories of quiz-kids and a former quiz-kid who was ruined by his parents.
Sounds pretty complex, not? Well, the film lasts for three hours but they are gone before you know it. All in all it isn’t a too complex film I think. It is quite depressive though, since it really shows peoples shortnesses and fears and most of the people are -as mentioned- in a very bad period of their lives.

“Magnolia” is a film that you have to be in the mood for, but I can asure you it is great!

El Maquinista * Brad Andersson

the machinist

“If you were any thinner, you wouldn’t excist”. I suppose you all heard about Christian Bale (“American Psycho”) who starved himself to weighing almost nothing for this film and six weeks later being in his normal proportions for the shooting of “Batman Begins”, so I won’t say too much about that. Bale is playing a man who hasn’t slept for a year and thus ended up in living in some sort of dream world. When he accidentally causes a co-worker to loose an arm in the factory where they work, Trevor Reznik is eaten by guilt and his mind starts to play tricks with him.
Good acting, a weird story and a nice atmosphere makes this film a nice viewing experience.

Luther * Eric Till * 2003

Another historical film, of course about Martin Luther (1483-1546), the reformer of the Christian faith. Joseph Fiennes (“Shakespeare In Love”, “Elizabeth”) is Luther, a man who ends up in a monastry where he stays for many years. Then he is sent to Rome and after that to a university to study theology. He quickly becomes professor. Especially during his visit to Rome, his view of what Christianity should be is smashed to pieces by the reallity that he sees. Payments make sure that you spend fewer time in purgatory, monks go to prostitutes and priests don’t care about the common people. Luther starts to write books in the language of the common man (German in his case) making points of his findings. The people finally find someone to agree with, so Luther becomes popular and a threat to the Roman church. This church tries to make him a heretic and to get rid off him. While secretly being kept in prison (to prevent him from being killed by the authorities), Luther translates the New Testament into German and the Roman church sees a growing menace in him. In the same time people revolt basing themself on ‘Luther’s ideas’ which aren’t his ideas at all, so he comes forth from his hiding place trying to get things back in order.
“Luther” is a nice drama giving a nice overview of the happenings around the person who split the Christian Church. Educating and amusing, so if you are interested in this part of history, this film is a nice watch. Now we need films about Calvin, Swingly, etc., because this is only one side of the reformation of course.

Lulu * Maartje Seyferth & Victor Nieuwenhuijs * 2006

What is it with Dutch films that they are almost never good? The backcover of this brandnew film was interesting enough to rent it, but my expectations were not made true. A rich man living in a mansion in the middle of the forest (and looking way too much like the late director Theo van Gogh) runs into a beautifull young gypsy girl named Lulu. He takes her in and the two get a passionate relationship. The film plays around a diner in which Leon (the rich man) invites his friends and relatives and the diner becomes a metaphore of Leon’s idea of the ‘friendship’ of everyone. Every time another guest is confronted with the fact that (s)he had something with Lulu too, so the film becomes one big flashback. The general story is quite like “Festen” (1998). The flashbacks do not make the film very interesting and the diner and events and rather dull. Of course (being a Dutch film this is almost a cliché) there is much nudity in the film, but nothing can raise the film above the level of dullness. I am sorry that I have to say that “Lulu” not only has an unoriginal title, an unoriginal setting, but also a far from interesting story. ‘Fortunately’ “Lulu” is only 75 minutes long. -1/5/06-

Lost In Translation * Sofia Coppola * 2003

Bill Murray plays the film actor Bob Harris who is in Tokyo to shoot some commercials. Scarlett Johansson is Charlotte who is also in Tokyo because her husband is working as band-photographer. From the first minute Coppola lays much stress on the differences between American and Japanese culture and continues to do this in the film. Both Bob and Charlotte are lost in Tokyo, having problems sleeping, have no clue how to behave in the Japanese city and keep running into eachother in the hotel lobby in the middle of the night. A strange friendship between the old man and the young woman develops in which Bob becomes a bit of a teacher for Charlotte. A nice film with nice shooting. <27/9/04><3>

Lost * J.J. Abrams & Damon Lindelof * series 1 2004

I remember when the first series came on Dutch television. Big anouncements, advertisement in tv-guides, raving commentaries. In that time we just had “Operation Robinson”, a “Big Brother” like “real life soap” and I expected “Lost” to be the original or at least an American counterpart. Later I heard that “Lost” was “Twin Peaks on a deserted island” and similar expressions and then people who followed the series were very enthousiastic about it and I understood that it was an actual series and not some time-filling “real life” thing. So in the end I watched the first series.
The two episode pilot is superb. Extremely realistic scenes of a crash-site of an airoplane, flashbacks of the crash which are also very realistic, survivors who stranded on a remote island with ‘something’ on it. A very nice mix between a disaster series and a Stephen King story. As the series continues the episodes do not have much to do with eachother, some are simple soap things with relationships that form or break, pragnancies, etc. In some episodes some strange things happen, but the high tension of the first two episodes never returns. What people like about the series is that in flashbacks you get to know a few of the characters and how they are connected to eachother. Personally I don’t think that this has much to do with the fact of them being on a deserted island. The series become a bit boring, but towards the end, things get better. The last two shows are again to parts of one episode and I feared that the series would suddenly end to announce the second series. Indeed, the last two episodes are again good, but just when things get really interesting again, it is “to be continued”, thank you for watching, goodbye. Very irritating, especially now that I see that there is already a third series. The different series do not stand on their own as in, for example, “24”, so I have my doubts if I want to see the second series only to have to wait to be able to see the next. Besides, “Lost” is not that good, so will I keep following them? You may see.