Last night I watched a German/Austrian/Italian made for TV movie about the Austrian Empress (Kaiserin) Elizabeth. It is a remake of one of my favorite films Sissi (1955). I never understand why they have to remake already perfectly made movies. But alright, I was curious, so I watched it.

The entire time I was thinking that there was something off about the acting. The actors weren’t really connecting well which I put down as pure bad acting and made me wonder why they didn’t hire better actors. But I found out afterwards that the main actress (Cristiana Capotondi) is Italian and more or less everyone else, including the main actor (David Rott), is German. The German actors don’t speak Italian and the Italian actors don’t speak any German. So what they did was to have the Italian actors speak Italian and the German actors German. Even if they had a scene together. They would memorize the last word of the other persons dialogue as their queue. Apparently this is called babylonian film making (at least it is in German).

Which brings me to my question: WHY???? Why would you do that? I’m sure there are plenty of German speaking actresses that could have played the Empress. So why go through the hassle of all that confusion on set? Well, in this case the producers were mainly Italian and insisted on using an Italian actress (or so it sounded in the interviews on their website). But why couldn’t they find an Italian actress that speaks German? I just don’t get it. I don’t see any advantages of doing it this way.

And it shows, it really does. The actors are more or less reciting lines that they memorized but they are not playing off each other. Most of you know that I am at acting school at the moment and the main thing they teach us is to really listen to each other and let the other person have an effect on ourselves. But you can’t do that if you don’t understand the other person and are just waiting for one word in a foreign language that tells you that it’s your time to speak now. It is also strange to watch since one person is obviously dubbed but the others aren’t.

I wonder if this is a European thing or whether its going to come over to America as well. I surely hope not. I’m completely up for international collaborations and using actors that come from all sorts of different countries but then film it all in English (or whatever common language they all speak). This is completely nuts! Sorry, but I couldn’t sleep well cause it was bugging me so much last night.

Here is our very romantic choice for Valentine’s Evening entertainment that we had along with a heart shaped pizza from Papa John’s. My dream date There is one of these new Blockbuster boxes in our local Duane Reade. Unfortunately it has a very limited number of films available to rent.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

I had seen the trailer to this movie which left me cold. When I heard that it received a Golden Globe I was a little more intrigued but little did I know how much I would enjoy watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It is utterly hilarious!

Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) wanted to become an inventor since childhood but his inventions never really worked and he wasn’t well respected, not even by his own dad. But things are changing for him when his newest invention, a machine that turns water into food, takes off. Literally: it accidentally flies into the sky where it turns the clouds humidity into food which then rains onto the earth. Pretty neat! What’s even better is that Flint can type in any food that he would like the machine to produce. Right around that time Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), a young weather broadcast intern, steps into Flint’s life and bewitches him with her nerdy charms. Naturally, disaster is waiting right around the corner. The food machine gets out of control and starts to produce giant food that it now a danger to Flint’s town. He has to stop it!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs has so many quirky little ideas that make it a lot of fun to watch. I haven’t laughed this much in a long time.

Watchmen

Superhero movies are somewhat blending together in my mind. A lot of them are so much alike. Whatchmen is clearly not one of the better comic book adaptations that I have seen though.

Yes, she is wearing latex suspenders...

I won’t write a synopsis of this movie, mainly because I didn’t really get the story. It felt more like an introduction of the comic book characters then a story-line. And I didn’t care about the characters at all. None of the character managed to touch me in any way, not even really engage my interest. Malin Akerman (Laurie Jupiter) gave a such a terrible performance that I had to think of my teacher, George Loros, who always says that it’s a pity that we can’t sue actors for bad acting (he is hilarious, I wish I could tape him!). I usually really like Matthew Goode, Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson but this movie brought out the worst in them.

The special effects, fight scenes and all that were fine but overall I don’t think you are going to miss out on anything if you never see Watchmen.

Alright everyone, what’s the deal with this movie? So many people said that it is really great. I thought it was kinda entertaining but seriously nothing special.

The premise of the story is easy: Four guys are celebrating a bachelor party in Las Vegas, they wake up the next morning and don’t remember anything about the night before. Their hotel room is destroyed, they are mysteriously rooming with a tiger and a chicken and one of the guys (the one who is supposed to get married) is missing. The three guys that are still there go on a quest to find their missing friend and to find out what happened the night before.

(Spoilers!) Apart from the tiger who turns out to belong to Mike Tyson nothing truly original happened though. One guy got married to an escort girl (Heather Graham), they accidentally stole casino chips from a Chinese mobster and had a party with a lot of stripper like looking girls. These seem like the obvious Vegas choices to me. Some scenes are moderately funny but I never actually laughed out loud.

I’m not sure I want to get into the acting because there basically was none. Obviously I don’t know the actors personally but it seemed like pure typecasting to me. The “stupid” guy was a bit funnier then the others but he over-acted the role for my taste. I can see how the movie could possibly be amusing when you are with a group of friends having a few drinks. But I am so glad that I didn’t watch it at the cinema!

And why on earth did it get a Golden Globe? For what? How did they justify this decision? I mean, it ran against (500) Days of Summer, Julie & Julia, It’s Complicated and Nine. That’s tough competition. What were the guys on when they voted for The Hangover? I am using “guys” on purpose because it is definitely more aimed at male viewers.

Could someone please explain to me what is so special about this film that it deserves so much attention and a Golden Globe?

(If The Hangover had not gotten a Golden Globe, I might have given it 2.5 MovieStars but out of protest, I’ll only give it 2)

As the director says on the special features of the DVD, the story of Once could be written on the back of a postcard. Guy (Glen Hansard) is a street musician in Dublin, working at his fathers hoover repair shop to earn his rent, when Girl (Markéta Irglová) comes up to him one day and changes his life completely. She is a Czech immigrant trying to make some money any way she can (selling flowers and Big issues). They discover a similar passion for music which leads to a close friendship and a recording of Guy’s first demo CD. There is always the possibility of something more then friendship.

The film is not about the script as much as it is about the music and the way the music affects the viewer. The director (John Carney) made the choice to use musicians as actors because for him it was more important that the songs were well performed. He even used tricks to make the performances better, such as filming from far away so that the two main actors weren’t aware of the camera. It works well though. It was also made in a documentary style on a very low budget. The style somehow manages to make these two people become real to the audience. Like it is a documentary about their friendship rather then a fiction film.

I personally really like the songs. They were mostly written by Glen Hansard which really helps his performance. He is very much in the moment when he sings and I always like to watch people perform their own songs. The film is very unusual and extremely subtly and slowly told. I thought Once was a very beautiful film. It felt a bit like watching a very long music video with a bit of a story in between the songs. And it was very refreshing to see real looking people on screen and not polished Hollywood stars.

After retiring from being a night guard at the Natural History Museum in New York City and becoming a successful inventor and TV salesman Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is shocked to find out that the museum is being re-invented. All the museum’s items are being shipped to the underground archives of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Larry has almost forgotten about his friends, the museum pieces which come alive at night and which we learned to love in the first movie, Night at the Museum. But when the tiny cowboy figure Jedediah Smith (Owen Wilson) calls him to tell him that they are all in big trouble at the Smithsonian’s, Larry doesn’t waste any time and flies right down to Washington to help them.

Thus the great battle of the Smithsonian’s begins. Some fun new characters and ideas are being introduced in this movie. My personal favorite is Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) who plans to unleash his undead army. I absolutely love Hank Azaria and always wonder when he is going to get a leading role. I’d watch him for 1 1/2 hours! The giant statue of Abe Lincoln (Hank Azaria) also comes to live. I wasn’t too impressed with Amy Adams in this movie. She plays Amelia Earhart and although she seems to do a good impersination, she doesn’t seem believable as a human being. You could argue that she is not a human being in the movie but there is a little love story going on between her and Larry and I somehow didn’t buy it.

Overall the movie is great fun. It is almost as good as the first one, although it is missing the surprise effect, because we have already seen the museum collection coming to live. Some funny new things were added though. In this movie, even paintings and sculptures start moving.

We went on a short trip to Washington this weekend (alright, I’ll admit it, the trip was slightly inspired by watching the movie) and went to a few of the Smithsonian museums as well as Abraham Lincoln’s monument. Seeing it all up close really showed how much is invented or changed to serve the movie. The distances that they walked or ran between all the museums are really a lot further then the movie leads us to believe. Especially Abe’s statue is quite a way away from the rest of the museums. One museum shown in the movie doesn’t even exist in real life. Neither do the underground archives. Well, they do exist, but not in Washington. It is absolutely worth the trip to see the Smithsonian Institute though. The Air and Space museum is beautifully made. The others are, as well, but that one really stands out. And the admission to all of them is free, so go and see it for yourself!

There are a lot movies that I have watched in the past few weeks that I haven’t reviewed yet. Mainly out of time reasons. I do try to write about all the films that I watch at the cinema but I can’t always keep up with my Netflix movies. So here are a few very short reviews.

What a great reason to test out my new rating system:

Love Actually This is a movie I have to watch at least every Christmas. I love pretty much everything about it. British cinema at its best! I don’t think I have to say anything else about it because you have all seen it. If you haven’t then what are you waiting for?

Paper Heart Recommended by David from Hoping for Something to Hope for, I really enjoyed watching this indie mocumentary. The main characters Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera (both playing themselves) make a very cute couple and their fictional love story goes well with the real interviews. It is a very cute film but won’t become one of my favorites.

The History Boys This is a fun film about a British all boys school. A few boys are preparing for their interviews at Oxford University with much help from their teachers. It is a sweet film but there are better films about all boys (or all girls) schools.

The Girl on the Bridge A beautiful and odd French film about a young women trying to commit suicide and being rescued by a man who turns out to be a Knife Thrower. Together they go on a journey to discover themselves and each other. It is a very unusual and wonderfully made movie.

The Way We Were A classic that I have only just watched for the first time. I think it is different to grow up with it but I really liked the story and the characters. I would have wished for a different ending though.

La Moustache This is a truly strange movie about a man who shaves off his mustache and to his surprise no one notices. People around him even deny the fact that he ever had a mustache. Honestly, that is the plot! I really liked it until the man goes off to Hong Kong and completely loses his mind (Or did I lose my mind watching it?).

Hideous Kinky Since Kate Winslet is in this movie, I have seen it a couple of times before. But a long time ago. I love the feel of the movie. I have never been to Morocco but I can almost taste the air when watching this film.

Postcards from the Edge Even though Meryl Streep plays the main character in this, the movie is completely forgettable. It’s not a bad film, it’s just not special in any way and the editing is awful and in my eyes ruins a movie that could otherwise be kinda fun.

My Cousin Vinny This is a surprisingly humorous film about two boys who through some misunderstanding face the death sentence for murder. One of the boys cousins, Vinny, just passed the bar and tries his best to defend them. It is simple but laugh out loud funny.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Tim Burton Rocks!

This is him at his finest.

Eyes of Laura Mars A dark murder mystery about a woman who takes fashion photos of murder scenes that haven’t happened yet. She starts getting visions while the murders happen. It’s well made, well acted and mysterious enough to have kept my attention. It reminded me a lot of Peeping Tom though.

The movie poster for Into the Wild caught my interest a while ago but I only just managed to watch it.

Chris just finished college and instead of going on to grad school, he gives all his savings to a charity, packs his bag and goes off on a journey without telling any of his family. He backpacks through the US and South America but his ultimate destination is Alaska. Here he walks through the snow until he finds an abandoned bus where he stays. In the film, the story goes back and forth between Alaska and his memories of the journey that led him there while Chis’ sister narrates the entire story.

The movie is beautifully shot and I love traveling and have always been intrigued by the idea of going “into the wild” with just a backpack and no idea where I am going to end up so it is right up my alley. But it could have definitely used some more editing. It is unnecessarily long and loses itself in the beauty of nature once in a while. I didn’t like the main actor which, in this movie, is a big deal. I don’t remember having seen Emile Hirsch in anything else but I thought he lacked in charisma.

Into the Wild is based on a true story that Sean Penn wrote the screenplay for and directed it. I think he seems like the kind of guy who would actually go out into the wild himself which comes through in the detailed way nature is shown. It is like “nature” or “the wild” is actually a character in this film. It can be as gorgeous as it can be dangerous. Overall, the movie is probably only really interesting to people who like the outdoors and who like adventure. If you are interested in these kinds of things, as beautiful as this film is I would recommend you watch Motorcycle Diaries and Ewan McGregors documentary The Long Way Round first.

X-Men: Wolverine

X-Men: Wolverine is a prequel to the X-Men series, of which I have only seen the first one. I only watched Wolverine because of Hugh Jackman and he turned out to be the only good thing about the film. The story, apart from the usual X-Men setting of having mutants with special powers living on earth, is fairly ordinary. Two brothers drift apart because of differences in opinion and realize later that blood is still thicker than water when it gets really bad. I just think they could have come up with more than that. They created this entire world which is actually really cool (who wouldn’t want to have special powers?) and then write a story that a hundred other movies have already used. Weak! The special effects are quite good and Jackman certainly brings a cool-factor into the film, but the story-line and dialogues ruin it completely. I do agree with Rachel on Rachel’s Reel Reviews though, seeing Wolverine naked makes it almost worth watching this film .

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The basic story: Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born old and ages backwards until he is a baby. He falls in love with a young girl named Daisy (Cate Blanchett). This movie was so hyped with all its Oscar nominations and awards and its star cast so that I was really looking forward to seeing it. But I have to say that I found it extremely boring. The introduction with the old Daisy and her daughter is too long, Benjamin’s old age (or childhood), after he is born is even longer, his middle age still longer and once he gets really young (at the end of his life) it is hurried as if the filmmakers needed to end the movie quickly. The idea of the story (adapted from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald) is quite fun and quirky, but the script just didn’t milk it enough. The scriptwriters Eric Roth and Robin Swicord  didn’t seem to realize that the special thing about this film is that Benjamin ages backwards. How could they have missed this little detail? The main story and the longest part of the film is about his middle age, when he is basically just doing what everyone else is doing. He gets work, goes to war, falls in love, gets his girlfriend pregnant, things don’t work out, and he leaves. Great, well done… What they should have focused on are his differences to regular people. Especially the beginning of his life and the end. To be fair, they did put quite a big focus on the beginning of his life, but there is nothing really special about it. Instead of being a normal child he is born old and grows up in an old people’s home. But nothing ever happens. And the end of his life when he gets younger is so hurried and mostly about Daisy that it seems irrelevant. Plus, Brad Pitt hardly had to act, why is everyone so dazzled by his performance?

Twilight

Alright, so I knew when I watched Twilight that I was in for a teen-movie. But I thought, great, Clueless, for example, is on my top 100 list, plus I adore vampires. But again, the art of scriptwriting seems to have faded into oblivion. So, the main vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) is supposed to be extremely cool and to have lived for hundreds of years (I assume that this means he has accumulated some sort of wisdom), but the writers just make him say the most stupid things. After saving the lead girl Bella’s (Kristen Steward) life by pushing a big car away from her with his bare hands, she confronts him about it. His first reaction is “Oh, you don’t know what you saw, you were in shock and confused at the time.” She doesn’t buy it so he says “Well, nobody is gonna believe you anyway”. What?! What kind of vampire wouldn’t have a better excuse? And the dialogue just goes on like this throughout the entire movie. Do I really want to watch a film about a moron vampire? Well, that sounds like a fun comedy but not a wannabe serious teen movie. My advice to all screenwriters: Think, then write!

Wanting an evening of light, fun entertainment, we decided to have a Tomb Raider “marathon” yesterday. I had seen both of them before (a few times, actually) but I still really like the films.

In the first one, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Lara (Angelina Jolie) finds a mysterious clock that was hidden for her by her now dead father. When she finds out that the clock can control time once placed together with two pieces of a broken triangle at a certain time on a certain day at a certain place when all nine planets align (which only happens every five thousand years), she just has to go and find this hidden temple. She is not the only one looking for a way to control time, as the sect the Illuminati also want to have the device.

Best scene: It has to be the scene where she is doing some sort of relaxation workout on bungee-cords in her house, which suddenly gets invaded by the Illuminati. She is up against hundreds of men who really don’t stand the chance against her.

In the second film, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, there is even more at stake. Here, Lara is looking for Pandora’s Box, which was supposed to have created life itself. She is working together with the British Intelligence and her ex-lover Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler) to find the box before a scientist finds it who wants to sell it to the highest bidders to release a plague onto the world to rid it of, in his eyes, unwanted people.

Best scene: Lara needs to get to the surface of the ocean, so she cuts her arm to attract a shark, then punches the shark and holds onto the shark’s fin. Very impressive!

Both films are action-packed and full of mystery and intrigues. I have only ever played the game once, at my godfather’s place, a really long time ago, but I think the films do the game justice. I love the character of Lara Croft. She is so rich that she doesn’t have to work and archeology is her main hobby. She is a tomb raider, not because she needs money or anything like that. It just seems to give her a kick. She is living in a huge mansion with her butler and a geek who takes care of the electrical equipment. As far as action films go, these are two of my favorites. It is really nice to have a woman as the main character of an action film. And she is a lot cooler, tougher and better looking than most of her male counterparts. Somehow the stories in action films are never as important to me as the main characters. But I do like intrigues, so the stories of the Tomb Raider films suit me just fine .

Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft: I personally think she is perfect for the role. Angelina can really pull off the female Indiana Jones. She looks exactly like the computer game version and I can easily believe that she can do all those crazy things she is doing in the film (well, if anyone could do them, I think it would be her). She also has a certain arrogance in her appearance that fits perfectly for this rich, spoiled British woman who is risking her life just for a bit of fun. It is quite sad what is happening to Angelina Jolie lately…she used to be so cool and rock’n'roll (especially in Gina, Girl Interrupted and Gone in Sixty Seconds) and now she has become boringly mainstream. What a pity. But in Tomb Raider she definitely kicks ass!

This was one of my favourite films as a child (I guess it still is!). I hadn’t seen it for years until yesterday and I still love everything about it: the story, the characters, the music and the costumes!

Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) is selling flowers on the streets of London (when I watched it this time, I actually recognized Covent Garden which was fun…I love recognizing places in movies…whenever I visit new places, I try to go to go to my favourite movie-settings). She somehow gets wind of someone taking down everything she says. After a big argument it turns out that Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is, in fact, not a detective but simply a phonetics professor who is interested in the young lady’s accent. He claims that her accent keeps her selling flowers on the street and that if she could only speak proper English, she could be a lady in a flower shop, or even pass for being a princess.

The next day, Eliza goes to Henry Higgins’ house to get lessons, so that she could maybe start working in a shop. Higgins bets his friend Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-Whyte) that he can turn dirty Eliza into a lady and take her to an important ball in six months time. So, the work begins…

My Fair Lady is a truly beautiful film. Eliza is not very girly at all, she is quite feisty really. Professor Higgins, on the other hand, is a very manly man. He has no interest in women and plans on remaining a bachelor for the rest of his life. I really like these characters. Even the side characters, such as Higgins’ mother and Eliza’s father are great. They are unusual and fun. The music is catchy, and the costumes are fabulous. What could you possibly want more from a movie?

Favourite scenes: Higgins and Pickering take Eliza to a horse race as a test run. It sort of turns out badly… absolutely hilarious! My second favourite scene (and song) is when Eliza first manages to speak English sort of properly. They dance and laugh and she is so excited, she can’t sleep even though it is four o’clock at night (I could have danced all night).

Advice: If you have not seen this movie, watch it! If you have, watch it again