Skip to content

The Lawnmower Man – Brett Leonard (1992)

Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) investigates the possibility to enhance knowledge with the use of virtual reality. His investigations are picked up by a company that is more interested in the possibilities for warfare. When Angelo’s test-monkey dies, he tries to turn his career into a less warlike direction. His new subject becomes his lawnmower man, the simpleminded Jobe Smith.

Even with the equipment in Angelo’s own basement, results are astonishing. Jobe really does become smarter. Taking the next step in the laboratory of his employer, things skyrocket and Jobe not only develops lightening speed in learning, but he also develops psychic abilities.

Using 1990’ies computer graphics to show the virtual world and the games that Angelo also develops, a picture is painted of technology that develops too fast. The result is a descent film which also has a few warnings for our own time.

Spaceman – Johan Renck (2024)

A slow, minimalist, somewhat surrealistic and interesting science-fiction drama.

A strange, purple cloud is visibe in the night sky, somewhat near Jupiter. Apparently, a mission has been sent there to investigate. When the film starts, Jakub Prochazka has been on his way on this solo mission for half a year. He is getting closer to the strange cloud.

Slowly losing his mind due to the loneliness of his job, Jakub encounters a strange, spider like fellow passenger on his ship. “Hanus” seems to be an alien life form who is interested in the human condition. Hanus not only becomes some sort of psychiatrist to Jakub, but he also explains what the cloud actually is. In the meanwhile some drama is added when Jakub’s pregnant wife, who remained on earth, has second thoughts about their relationship.

In story and atmosphere, “Spaceman” perhaps holds the middle between “Interstellar” (but not as good and not that complex a story”) and “Ad Astra” (but better).

Longlegs – Osgood Perkins (2024)

  • horror

A bit of a weird horror film and since weird is good, “Longlegs” is somewhat interesting.

A young FBI agent is put on a decade long running serial killer case in which families end up dead around the birthdays of their daughters.

With interesting camera work and colours, including vague, surrealistic scenes, Perkens tells a story of the ominous “Longlegs” (Nicholas Cage, hardly recognisable) who haunts little girls.

The atmosphere is decent, the weird scenes amusing and the overall result not bad at all.

Bliss – Mike Cahill (2021)

  • drama

The bored and boring Greg Wittle has visions of another world. These visions cause him to loose his job. When he tries to drown his misery in the local pub, Wittle is approached by Isabel (Salma Hayek) who appears to know a lot about him.

A bit like in the first Matrix film, Wittle learns that the world that he is used to is not the real world, and Isabel teaches him to manipulate his surroundings and eventually, they go to the actual ‘real world’.

Needless to say, the film plays with the question which world actually is the real one. With no real surprises the idea is tossed back and forth and a bit of a tragic romance story unfolds.

Prometheus – Ridley Scott (2012)

An alright science fiction film in which two investigators think to have discovered where mankind originates. They form a team and fly to the planet where they think the “Engineers” who created man came from.

After two years in hybernation, the team wakes up and only then learn what their mission is about. The noses do not really point in the same direction, but immediately on arrival, the team starts to explore the planet and find what they are looking for. Needless to say they did not find what they hoped for and a bit of an “Alien” type story unfolds in which the crew is decimated by the inhabitents of the planet.

The story is descent, but has a few holes. The atmosphere is good. All in all a fair film.

The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience – Diva & Schaffer (2019)

A rap musical mockumentary of 30 minutes about two successful baseball players. Say what? Yep, there you have this amusing Netflix short in a nutshell.

Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire were stars in the 1980’ies. Their story has highs, lows, abuse of steroids, lots and lots and money yet difficulties with social relations.

The story is told as some sort of rap musical, or as the creators call it a: “visual rap album”. Quite amusing actually!

Meridian – Curtis Clark (2016)

Weird, this 12 minute short is up on Netflix as a film and as a two episode mini series, but both episodes are the same.

“Meridian” is a film noire style film in which a police officer is sent out to find a mysterious woman who may have witnessed the disappearance of a man. The film is moody and interesting and then suddenly stops as if it was a pilot for a series to come.

It – Andy Muschietti (2017)

  • horror

I suppose I saw the original “Stephen King’s It” (1990) as it was quite a thing back in the say. But I do not even remember that this appears to have been a mini series. In any case, this remake is also already 7 years old. It was not high on my list.

Muschietti’s version has strong “Stranger Things” (2016-8) vibes. A group of young outsiders team up to fight a supernatural evil. The presence of Finn Wolfhard adds to the similarity.

I suppose you will know the story. A rural American village is terrorized by the clown Pennywise. Children disappear, but it are also children who set out to fight it.

Just a horror. “Stranger Things” is way better, both in the 1980’ies atmosphere and storywise.

Pixel Theory – Carpintero, Delgado & Dharma (2013)

Six short films, together spanning almost 90 minutes. Now do I list this as “short”? I guess not, since the shorts combined appear to tell one story, or perhaps different approaches to the same theme.

“The Program” appears to stand for AI. It started creating art not-yet-made, was predicted by Carl Jung, turns people into killers and we look back from the future in which “Gúgól” was the first computer.

The idea was to raise questions about our use of algorithms and the like. The result are six quite different and mostly fairly amusing short films.

Deadpool & Wolverine – Shawn Levy (2024)

  • action

Probably in the last week of it showing on the big screen, I saw this year’s summer hit. Not that it was very high up on my list after having watched a Deadpool and a Wolverine film, but it was the least uninteresting film playing when I had some time to kill.

With the typical (and fairly boring) adolescent humour, we follow Deadpool, who needs to find the dead Wolverine in order to save his timeline.

The film contains many references to other movies, ‘Hollywood culture’, the competition and some of these jokes are actually somewhat amusing. Also, as the story goes on, we run into other Marvel characters. Not the Avengers that Deadpool wants to join, but characters like Blade or Elektra.

The film contains a lot of bloody fighting scenes and bad language. I guess this is Marvel trying to appeal to the growing-up audience. Judging the rating at IMDb.com (7.8) this seems to work, but I do not really get much further than: somewhat amusing, here and there an alright joke.