Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I love festival coverage. I love the fact that there are always reports coming in from festivals all over the world where films are being shown, some of them far in advance of their release and some of them that will never see the bigscreen in the US. Today, we’ve got this report from Berlin:
Hey Harry
I'm a Dane. I've once before written a review to ain't it cool, which was never used, but this time'll try again, just returned from the berlin film festival. If you post this, call me Holden.
I actually managed to see only two films. Two films that was so close to killing off my entire wanting to ever see a film again, that I actually feel lucky just to be alive. Two films that forever will be on me list of biggest dung piles and worth suing for stealing two hours of my life each.
First off, Battle Royale 2:
I'm a huge fan of the first one, it's one of those films that I've watched a thousand times, always getting inspired and marvelling in the simplicity and way of portraing a modern society like no film has done since clockwork orange. I've read reviews on AICN, none of them were overtly positive, but i really hoped that BR2 would still mean something to me. i got tickets for a press screening, and was so glad that I nearly pissed myself. Most of you know that Kinji fukasaku died in the making of this one, thinking that this was a story so needed to be told that he put his last seconds of breath on the line. What came out of his dream is a nightmare on all levels, and had I really pissed myself getting these tickets, that would've been a total waste of urin...
The story has been told a thousand times, but here it is one more version. spoilers ahead!
The survivors from the first Battle Royale have established a terror group with the annoying tag line Kill All Adults, and that's what they do, besides the fact that they not only kill adults, they just kill. for some odd reason the terrorists found it a really good idea to hide on an island. They're not really hiding though, the government knows where they are, and instead of just nuking the place they cleverly decide to send a class of youngsters to do the job for them. What ensues is excactly the same plot as in BR, but with so many added twists that the first plot seems absolutely unneeded. there's lika a thousand students this time, one of them is the daugther of the teacher in the first film, ohhh there's some revenge issues going on here, and they all get to this millitary camp where we see the "get your bags and go scene", only ten times as long as it was in the first film. We get the whole "this time you're connected two and two" scene, which means that if one dies, their connected person will die as well. This is a nice twist that turns out to be a huge pain, since each death takes at least 4 minutes to take place, in where we get loads of running around, screaming and name calling.
From here on the story goes bananas. The lpupils are taken to the island where the terrorists are hiding. Most of them get killed on the way to the island, in what must win the "worst rip off of saving private Ryan EVER" price without a doubt. I mean what are those metal bars doing there!!???
When the students got to the island, to major questions popped into my head. How did they make the forbidden zones again on an island they haven't been on. And even weirder, how did they manage to put up speakers on the island so the phsycho teacher can yell out all the nbames of the dead again? I just don't get it...
The students keep dying, while we find out that their teacher's insane, a father of a child that got killed in the terrorists' bombings, and that none of the persons in this film is actually worth caring for. people get shot with guns, none of the cool gadget killings of the first one. United States is used as some sort af a thematic reminder about war and stuff, and nothing really makes sense.
What you've got here is 20 different storylines all rolled into the same film. at 2 hours and fifteen minutes it actually feels longer than the whole LOTR trilogy combined. Shuya Nanahara has turned into a weird man with candles everywhere, and we don't get a glimpse of Noriko before the dying seconds of the film.
BR2 is a misunderstanding, a film that should never have been made, I looked forward to it, had wet dreams about it prior to seeing it, but now i'm in doubt whether I will ever be able to get an erection again, but in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, so it goes...
Now to something completely different.
The Final Cut
This comes with spoilers as well.
In a long line of films where Robin Williams is trying to convince us that he can actually be a serious actor, this is the latest, and worse... Set in a near future where it's possible to get your memories restored for people to see after your death, Williams plays a so called cutter named Alan Hakman. He edits all the memories into a little nice film, leaving out the most horrible of people's actions to make them look nice for their afterlife. Hakman himself has turned cold due to all the extreme situations he's constantly watching. And this film is about his long road back to like real emotions.
The film's a mess. First time director Omar Main who also wrote the script, has managed to make a pretentious film without one scene that actually works. Mira Sorvino plays Hakmans' unrealistic love interest, and Williams himself spends every moment he's in the film looking really sad that none of his lines are actually worth saying.
How the final cut came to be in the actual berlin contest defies belief, the story has been seen before a thousand times better, and all of Hakman's problems are so tedious and stupid that I spent the whole time wanting to hit him with a shovel. I didn't, instead i started untying my shoelaces and tying them again, and after I'd done that 3000 times, the credits rolled onto the screen. Good thing I didn't wear loafers...
I could say a lot more 'bout The Final Cut, but I don't really feel like it, as i said before, these two films made me lose faith in cinema as a whole, and that just hurt too much...
Holden.
Want to judge for yourself?
Hey Guys...
Some clips from Robin Williams's new sci-fi film, "The Final Cut," is up!
SCaRfaCe
Take a peek after you read the review, and see what you think. Thanks for the report, Holden, and thanks for the heads-up, Scarface.
"Moriarty" out.
