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John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
This was annoyingly boring
So I did not watch 1-3 of this installment, and was anxious I would not understand what's going on. So I watched the recaps on youtube and entered the cinema somewhat prepared. At least lore-wise. After 10mins in to the movie I suspected that the "lore" was just a bleak background for the sparse dialogues happening. After 20 min it became clear that this movie has no serious connection to anything worthwhile. Not even its own lore. The dog? No where to be seen. The car? Dunno. Dont want to spoil but there is nothing to spoil. Cut out the constant beating and shooting out of the movie and you get maybe 15 mins of lore. Its so boring, I cant understand the hype around John Wick. I just waited 180mins for him to finally finish.
I guess Keanu Reeves stopped acting and turned to gymnastics.
Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak (2006)
Turkish western in Iraq, in the tradition of 80's movies.
I saw the Movie in Frankfurt, Germany together with my family and another friend. I was quite eager to see it, since the US-Army recommended Army-Personel, neither to watch the movie nor even get close to cinemas in which the movie is played. Well, since this is a quality-criteria for me, I payed those 7,50 euro first without tears,.. but then after "Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak" started, i had to rethink (recalculate) my emotions...
First of all: I will not go deep into the political messages within the weak plot, rather have a look at the cinematic "qualitys", the acting, the intensity of ambiance, the requisite, the directing...
The acting:
Turkish Hero: Bad. Very bad. In an interview, he stated that in the beginning of his career he never imagined himself as an actor... someone should have brought him back to his senses. He is not a Rambo, he cant look "mad". He could have made it up by not having a baby face, but thats also not the case. His fight-scenes suck. His emotional acting-diversity is not existent. It would have been better, if he always said what he (the character) felt, so the viewer could imagine what the scene looked like with an actor knowing how to act. Sorry, but thinking about (the also horrible, but not that bad) movie "Deli Yürek", ... they should have taken the other havoc wreaking turk.
The Arab girl: Don't know why, but her acting was actually good... despite the horrible sentences she had to say, her acting was OK. Not like... lets say, Cate Blanchett in LotR, but a nearly-as-good-as drama queen, harassing her social surrounding with religious nonsense.
The American-bad guy: Billy Zane? What are you doing here? I hope he earned some serious bucks for eating his own reputation. Clearly no one around me could understand what he was doing there. OK, he was the bad guy, like the Russian general in those 80's Hollywood movie, but couldn't they take an actor who doesn't outperform the hero so easily? He was like a gemstone in a pile of rhinoceros-feces.
The Kurdish leader: He was kinda like the guy who betray his friends, the turks and Arabs. No political statement here, but: What about an actor, at least acting like he know what he is doing? I felt like... even the actor was ashamed of the character he is playing. He was a red-headed shamefaced piece of self-hate. Come on!
The spiritual leader: He was the best.
The other turks: Man, why did they have to be the sidekick of the hero? Damn, they where funnier, stronger, better then the bow-tie hero. When they spoke, at least we had something to laugh.
The American soldiers: They looked like a mixture of bodybuilders, local villagers and casual bystanders. The helping right-hand of Billy Zane was a quite good actor.
so much about the acting, now about the rest:
The requisite:
The first thing striking someones eye are the very, very, very wrong US-ARMY-helmets! They didn't use proper ones, in fact they looked like the Iraqi helmets with US-Cameo on it. Fascinating fact: the original US-ARMY helmets are (at least partially) produced in Turkey. Second thing: Did someone see a hummer? I can't remember. Perhaps there where similar Jeeps, but i wouldn't bet my ass on it. The Guns where OK.. Turkish movies are specialized on very intense gun-action. Thats the strong point they have. The weak point is: Guns cant act.
The directing:
The director wanted to mix the action scenes with the babble scenes, so the action-lover wont be much annoyed by the babbling, and the nonsense-babble lover wont be much annoyed by the action. I was annoyed by both. Though the action was good, i knew: Aftermath there would be evil, merciless feces-babbling about religion, revenge, bullshit. So the tiniest fun i would have had in the action-scenes where spoiled by the knowing that there will be a long, dreadful scene of pain, ahead of me. I drift away: directing->not even in the 80's it would have been OK. Perhaps in the 50's... Yes, in the 50's it would have been OK.
Lets wrap it up:
Hero->Bad
Badguy->Hero
helmets->wrong
guns->very good
Arab girl->nice to look but don't let her talk
spiritual leader->the best
movie->should have come in the 50's
overall-> a very good 2 stars Movie. lets say 2,5 Stars (due to Billy Zane)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Wasn't nearly good enough.
First of all, i loved the books and read them when i was a child. However this movie didn't come close to the masterpiece of Douglas Adams. Though we have to consider, that its always difficult to wrap up a whole book in a movie, i wish it would have worked.
The Acting -> OK (except "Trisha", she was so extremely bad.. damn it) Animations -> Very nice Aliens -> looking funny Gags -> in average about 3 per minute
For fans, who already read the books, the movie hasn't got any new ideas or convinces in any kind. For non-fans who didn't read the books and don't really know what its all about, the movie was to superficial. No deep thinking about stuff, just the plot, as we know it from the book.
This Movie tried but failed, sorry for all the fans out there.
Politiki kouzina (2003)
Movie about Greek citizens of Istanbul and their deportation out of the country.
When i first saw the Movie, it was completely in Greek, so i wasn't able to understand it entirely since my Greek is a little bit "rusted" ;) But i saw that it was excellently made, and was overwhelmed when i saw "Tamer Karadagil".
So it had my interest. After seeing it in the cinema, in German, it conquered also my heart. Such a fantastic movie about Love, Politiks, Meals, Old Men, Astronomy, Gastronomy, and the enduring pain of homesickness even after so many years.
Without spoiling: The acting of Fanis Father (Ieroklis Michaelidis) is so beyond fantastic, that you wish the whole movie was made again from his perspective! A great contribution to the Turkish-Greek relations, and hopefully it will finally find its ways to the Turkish cinemas, as far as i know it wasn't shown there yet. It surprises me by the way, that it came nearly 2 years after the premiere into German theaters. Why so extremely delayed? And why in some Countrys even not? For example Turkey ;)
Great thanks to my Greek neighbors for this great movie. And by the way good luck in 4th of June in Istanbul ;) (WM Qualification 2006).
Nanjing 1937 (1995)
Quality Check of the Movie...
SPOILER-ALERT!
Well, i had great expectations, when i ordered that movie for about 30 euro, and received the shipment from Far East (i guess the DVD came from Thailand). It is nearly impossible to find that movie in Europe or USA. It's only available in Taiwan, Thailand and China i guess.
It's story is mediocre. The Effekts are partially... weak, though you can see, that they invested great effort to visualize the whole horror of the massacre! For example the showed nearly 3 different Japanese Tanks, but on some scenes you just feel as if these Tanks, rolling in the City, are plastic-toys, about 3 inches "big".
But lets focus on the historical values of that movie, because that should be the strong point here:
-Movie points out the "International Security Zone" in which some historical correct characters are even shown (even if only for a few seconds). -The macabre competition between 2 Japanese officers, betting for the highest count of beheaded Chinese. -Shows the senseless (and illegal!) killings of POW's. -Killings of civilians... -Shows taiwanese men, fighting in the Japanese army. -Movie pictures out the takeover of the great Nanking City-Walls by jap soldiers. -Some Japanese Officers chatting about the Chinese origins of Japanese culture, in front of a huge temple. -Shows mass graves. ... and some details you'd capture here and there, but surprisingly thats it. The Movie doesn't show any "bigger" picture of the war, nor does it give a clear picture of the city's (and its inhabitants) condition in a general way. So you see the little family, being hunt rotational by Japanese soldiers (because of the Chinese husband) and by Chinese civilians (because of the Japanese wife) and in between many atrocitys committed. But disappointingly thats it.
The Movie has its highs, for example, when the Japanese Soldiers catch the family, and the wife talks them nearly out of trouble (but the little kid didn't understand that he shouldn't speak Chinese in front of jap soldiers).
And its lows, for example when you see plastic-Tanks "rumbling" through a little nanking-dummy ;)
well, i give it 7 out of 10. because its one of few movies dealing with that subject.