Reviews

If you're familiar with the danish police series "Rejseholdet" you will know that good police series doesn't necessarily have to be American or British.

Unfortunately,"Anna Pihl" was never even nearly as good as "Rejseholdet". The basic plot here evolves around a rookie female police officer starting off at her new job at a police station somewhere in Copenhagen in the pilot. She's cute-ish and pretty enough,but not too beautiful in a supermodel fashion because of course we want the audience to take her seriously as a career woman,not to focus on her chest size or legs. She's also idealistic and becomes engaged in the private lives of the people she comes into contact with in her profession.She even assumes the role of Nancy Drew when the working day is done,when she somewhat awkwardly tries to solve her clients'private issues when she can't do it in her role as a police officer.And of course,she's a single mother with a moderately hopeless ex-husband who have no more serious flaws than that he occasionally shows up with yet another new girlfriend Anna hasn't approved to being near her son.

Her father is a widower and depressed after the passing of his wife,but suddenly he shows up with a new love by his side-and to top it off,she's younger than Anna. Anna's love interest at the police station is a cute,sensitive guy with a motorbike,brown wavy hair and a smile soft as velvet. Her son is adorably sweet and clever.Sometimes she can't find a babysitter or her ex fails to pick their son up from kindergarten in time,but it hardly gets worse than that. She even cuddles in the couch with her landlord at nights,not as a couple since he's gay,but just as really good friends.Hunky dory. In short,Annas life is really quite perfect and there is the problem. This series lacks nerve and in the end,it just annoyed me to see Anna leap off to rescue people off-hours and how she disobeys orders to follow her heart and play hero. I sure don't think any real life police officer would get away with the behavior Anna displays on a daily basis.But of course,she's cute. I suppose that's a very forgiving trait.

The first thing that crossed my mind when I had watched this movie for a few minutes was how predictable some things were.Oh,I thought.Here we have an aspiring indie flick,let's see how much I can guess from the story.It was more than I had hoped for unfortunately. Not that the acting is bad,it is not,but the story,the lines,the characters are unfortunately full of clichés.The lines often feels unnatural and far-fetched,people in real life won't talk to one another as if they were acting in an on-stage play.I'm sorry,they don't.

The free-spirited and deeply intellectual former radio host Frances has three children with three different men.Every man she meets is of course attracted to her and fascinated by her,and she has mother issues(the mother is now senile but still mean and lives in a nursing home.Anna,Frances's mother, looks much younger than she should,if we assume that the story takes place around 2000).Frances too looks far younger than around 70 as she should be as it's stated in the movie that she's born in 1930. Her two sons are both intellectuals/artists too,even if constantly broke.The daughter she had with her married lover Bob was of course given up for adoption and is now,as Frances is dying from cancer,looking for her.Her name is Rebecca and she is a highly paid lawyer in New York. God forbid she would be an unnoticed housewife in the middle of nowhere. Will she find her mother before she dies?

Sleepy time gal has it's qualities.It's almost hypnotic to watch,the score consists mostly of strings and jazz,naturellement. I would have been a lot more surprised,moved and shaken if the story had been more unpredictable.And if the lines had felt more genuine.

"Allo,allo" was one of my first sitcom-experiences,it was launched when I was 8 and well before the boom of American sitcoms in Sweden. It felt cozy despite being set on a WW2 backdrop,it dealt with difficult subjects in a humorous manner without ever being tasteless.It corroborated the fact that laughter may be a very effective and uniting way of dealing with difficult and tabooed issues. Of course it's full of ethnic stereotypes(not least the British!),but they are almost always created with heart and warmth.Even the Germans.

The show rotates around René Artois,a café-owner in the small town of Nouvion somewhere in France.He's married to Edith Melba since many years,and he's constantly cheating on her.Mostly with his waitresses,Yvette and Maria(who is replaced by Mimi Labonq in season 3). René's dilemma is surviving the war with as little trouble as possible and to do so he feels compelled to stay on the sweet side of both the Resistance,the German army,the Gestapo and the communist resistance.Not an easy task. The German lieutenant Gruber is gay and is almost immediately attracted to René,who despite the fact that he's not only bald and corpulent,but also married seem to be the most sought-after man in Nouvion.

Other significant characters is Edith's mother Fanny LaFan(mostly referred to as "the silly old bat" by René),Michelle of the Resistance with her ever reoccurring one-liner "listen carefully,I shall say this only once",Fanny's fiancé Monsieur Leclerc(possibly Edith's father),Monsieur Alphonse the undertaker(and Edith's suitor)and the ever hilarious officer Crabtree,a British intelligence agent who works under cover in Nouvion disguised as a police officer.Known for his bad french. And of course the waitresses.And the German colonel Von Strohm,lieutenant Gruber,Gestapo officer Flick and his sidekick Engelbert Von Smallhausen,Helga...all very enjoyable.

Some one-liners are repeated a bit too often,like when René calls Edith "you stupid woman" each time she catches him in the arms of a waitress,but it doesn't matter much. Few people will be able to resist the charm of this Britcom classic. Buy the box and enjoy when you feel cold and sad,it's a remedy as good as any,I promise!

Big Bang Theory first caught my interest since it was created by Chuck Lorre,one of the creators of my favorite among still-running sitcoms,the brilliant one-and-only "Two and a half men".A lot of people recommended "Big Bang Theory" so I thought I'd give it a try. The characters are,of course,created around popular stereotypes,somewhat more aimed towards a younger audience than the more mature "Two and a half men".

The plot evolves around four incredibly intelligent but geeky physicists who spend most of their free time playing WoW or watching SciFi-series,of course.They know next to nothing about how to attract women or even talk to them and when Penny,a cute blonde,cheer-leader-type girl moves in across the hall,they encounter a new perspective of life they know very little about.Sex. They are neurotic,thin and obsessive-compulsive(as over-intelligent people often are in fiction-world).At least Sheldon is,who to begin with show very little interest in things outside his area of expertise.Wolowitz is not really the neurotic type and he is also more outgoing than the rest of the bunch,but has somewhat overestimated his capabilities with the opposite sex.Worst off in the relationship area is Nayyar who goes completely silent in the presence of women.Wolowitz and Leonard are the gems in the cast,in my opinion.

Over all,TBBT is obviously a show with potential.The exaggerated stereotypes are sometimes a bit overdone,but I suppose it's nearly inevitable in a sitcom.I can live with that and still find it worth watching. Some things in the supposedly geeky look puzzles me,for instance would probably their taste in clothes be considered more hip than geeky in real life.

Give it a try if you haven't already,I believe the show will grow over time.

Two and a half men is mainly based on adult,raunchy humor,so it's not entirely family-oriented which is definitely on the plus-account,I find it an absolutely fabulous sitcom(even if Seinfeld always will rule).I have three sitcoms I find worth watching(not exactly having the time to follow more anyway),and that's Seinfeld,Frasier and Two and a half men.

Charlie Sheen plays the playboy-type composer(of jingles and commercial ad-tunes mostly)Charlie Harper who lives a carefree,single life in his beach house in Malibu,looked after by his housekeeper Bertha(a wonderful sharp-tongued character and my favorite)and stalked by his neighbor,the kind-hearted Rose with whom he once had a brief affair.Basically he breaks up with at least one girlfriend every week. One day his bachelor life changes drastically as his newly separated,fairly timid and strict brother Al(in many ways Charlie's opposite)moves in after being chucked out by his now ex-wife,the neurotic Judith(from time to time ambivalent regarding her sexuality)who claims Al is suffocating her spiritually.Al has a son(about 10 yrs old),Jake,who lives with him every now and then on a scheduled basis.Charlie,at first very reluctantly,becomes the cool uncle/"second dad",an opposite to the often uptight father Al.

Jake will not let himself be fooled by embarrassed,lying adults,he asks legitimate questions that makes the adults blush and lie,but he's often just fine with it.He knows,like most kids,more than his parents give him credit for.A great many moments that most adults can relate to are guaranteed...and we must not forget Al and Charlie's narcissistic and self-absorbed mother,who has her own real-estate business and is often,for various understandable reasons,avoided by her sons.Bertha adds many needle-pricks and sharp comments.

The characters are of course somewhat exaggerated,but still very believable(like in Seinfeld),I commend the creators for that achievement.Not too many writers succeed in that.You feel sympathy for them all,even the narcissists.The humor is creative,witty and sharp,and it's refreshing to see that the writers for instance dare to let Al's and Charlie's mother Evelyn be a very selfish,egocentric character and that they dare to portray the son-mother relationship as far from perfect and ideal. They have all more or less neurotic,lazy,uptight,high-strung,immature or narcissistic traits and that makes me love them all even more.

I must admit I have a soft spot for old-fashioned adventure movies,especially the classic good vs evil kind.And what movie could better represent that category than Raiders of the lost ark... This is the first,classic Indiana Jones adventure in which he gets an assignment to find the Ark of commandments itself,to prevent it from being taken into possession by the Nazis(this is supposed to be in 1936 and the superstitious dictator Hitler is crazy about the occult). A lost artifact,which may still be in the possession of his old mentor professor Ravenwood,will be essential in this quest so his first destination is Tibet,Ravenwood's last known resort.Ravenwood is however no longer alive,so he then travels to Egypt,accompanied by Ravenwood's (at first) somewhat reluctant daughter/Indy's previous crush Marion(Karen Allen).The Nazis have discovered Tanis,a lost Egyptian city where the Ark is believed to be buried...so there's naturally no time to lose.

Well,I do like profound,philosophical movies that makes you think.But hey,who can resist a real,fantastic adventure every now and then? If you haven't already traveled with the excellent traveling companion Indy all over the globe,do it now!

First of all,you should see this movie in the original version.Why?Because it's based in Japanese culture and folklore.And,the remake won't give you the same feeling at all.It's Japanese.See it in Japanese. The basic plot is as follows;a short video clip is said to be shown on a local TV-station every now and then and anyone who sees it will die,within 7 days.Basically,all the victims seem to have died from plain terror,they are found with horrid expressions on their faces. Most of them are teenage girls. When journalist Reiko's cousin dies after seeing it,she decides to defy her fears and investigate the story to the full,helped by her ex-husband. What begins as sheer curiosity soon becomes a race for her own and her son's life.She discovers connections to a tale of a child with special and horrifying powers who met a dreadful end.I love Ringu.Psychological drama is mixed with good old horror movie dramaturgy to a nearly perfect horror blend.

Another late night bad movie I happened to watch without intention=) I laughed out loud several times because it was so incredibly ridiculous. First I couldn't put my finger on why.The acting?Okay,it wasn't good,it was like the actors read their lines from a piece of paper.But okay for a B-movie. The story?Yeah,that must be part of it.The story is like a concoct of The Matrix,Terminator and Blade Runner topped up with some William Gibson,all gone bad.And all poorly done.Why the flickering green numbers and Japanese letters in front of people's faces for no obvious reason?Because it looks futuristic and "cool",and to give it some Blade Runner vibes?And headsets won't save a character's credibility either,PLEASE only put headsets on a character when motivated by the circumstances!!It will look really,really stupid otherwise. When Kam is presented as genetically engineered with falcon,chameleon and cougar genes I couldn't keep myself from laughing out loud. And what about the rubber suits,black leather and shades?To make Kam look like a sexy Molly Millions?Come ON!This movie makes me wonder why some scripts are picked up at all.It's obviously low-budget,and even if some visual effects are okay(it's hilariously funny/ridiculous to watch Kam blend into the background due to her chameleon genes,but the visual effect in itself is decently done),the story is crap,much like a really bad and cheap video game. Blade Runner is a classic,Ridley Scott knows how to direct a sci-fi story with nerve,darkness and atmosphere.Stuart Cooper obviously don't. If you have seen Blade Runner before,see it again instead of wasting time on Chameleon.Or read a Gibson novel.

effects for being this old,see this movie in a theater and not at home,that's my advice. If you're looking for an action sci-fi flick,this is not for you. The poetic nerve here is the strength of this future vision,where an expedition is sent to a place near Jupiter to explore the source of a monolith discovered on the moon. A similar one on earth was said to have made man evolve from the apes in the far past. Now the crew has technology to aid them,but technology seem to have its own mind and motives.HAL,the ship computer,seem to have become somewhat too human and start making his own decisions.His red all-seeing eye are watching the crew around the clock. In many ways this movie makes you wonder and ponder the role of technology,and what might happen if it one day may start making decisions of its own,without our consent. Do we really want computers with feelings and emotions?Really? The tripped ending was a slight disappointment though,it was too indefinite and drug-induced...