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21 Review

Lenne — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:17:14 +0000

Almost everyone has probably heard about counting cards on Blackjack. However, very few people really know what it’s actually about and what the real story behind it is. „21“ doesn’t really explain how it works (and why should it? It doesn’t work anymore anyways), but tells the fact-based story about a group of MIT-students, who, under the supervision of their professor, who happens to be a mastermind at cheating at Blackjack, travel to Vegas on their weekends and make a small fortune with this „simple“ mathemetical trick.
The main character Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is one of them. He’s brilliant at math, but doesn’t have the money to afford studying in Harvard, his life-long dream. Working at a clothing store for 8 bucks an hour doesn’t really help him get closer to his goal and leaves him disappointed by the fact the whole world is ruled by money. But one day his professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) realizes the massive potential young Ben has and recruits him for his team of the card-counting crème-de-la-crème. After being doubtful at first, Ben agrees to play and quickly becomes extremely successful, living the vibrant life of the glistening metropolis. However, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) from the casino security is not too pleased when he gets behind what’s going on in his temple of (mis)fortune. And when Ben makes one crucial mistake, things get ugly.

„21“ is, in contrary to what I expected, not so much about the game of Blackjack or the card-counting itself, as it is about telling the compelling story of a talented young person who struggles to find his place in a monetary world. This might be a little disappointment towards the hardcore gamblers out there, but it surely is a good thing for the broad audience. The characters all feel vibrant in their own way, not only through the solid writing, but also through partially great performances by the actors. Especially Jim Sturgess gives Ben an almost schizophrenic feel to him, that is also portrayed during the whole movie. There’s life in the suburbs of Boston, which is portrayed as cold, grey and uneventful. People just going about their boring, daily lives. And then there’s Vegas. The living, breathing centre of gambling with bright, flashing lights, millions of dollars changing hands every day and for the young students, the lifestyle of the rich and the famous. You can easily imagine how you can get caught up in that glamorous facade. At times Ben reminds me a little of the character Donnie Darko, who also usually is more of a shy guy, but has this side to him where he’s almost obsessed with something. Great acting, there, Mr. Sturgess!

What impressed me from a technical view is the camera work and the overall visualization. There’s been a lot of importance put on facial expression. As they obviously cannot talk freely when they’re making the casino’s safe tens of thousands of dollars lighter, you have to be able to tell what they thikn, what they’re feeling by mimic. And you can, which leaves me once again saying: Great acting, there, Mr. Sturgess!
The conflictive nature of ‘normal’ life at home and the almost surrealistic Vegas-lifestyle is also portrayed very well. No hotel room-scenes without a panoramic window. No Vegas vacation without limousine, an explosion of colors and an increase in lavish behavior.

There are some little things that bothered me, though. Obviously, it’s only loosely based on the true story, so I don’t know in how far this has realistic relevance. But you can’t help wonder throughout the movie: Why in God’s name do they always use the same, conspicuous tell for the player to come to their table? And why do they ALWAYS go to the exact same casino? I would have expected soon-to-be Harvard students to be smart enough to realize it might not be the most subtle thing to win tens of thousands of dollars from the same casino every weekend.

All in all, I can definitely recommend you watch „21“. Don’t be disappointed by its lack of actually being about the game. That gap will be filled by convincing acting and interesting story-telling.

Official Site: http://www.21-movie.com/

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478087/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvrcTAsFH-g

Machine Girl - Tarantino Gone Japanese

Lenne — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:12:18 +0000

I’ve always said Quentin Tarantino really isn’t as good as people say. It seems some Japanese guy named Noboru Iguchi totally missed my point and thought to himself: „Well then, I can do a movie that makes Quentin Tarantino’s crap look like Cartoon Network.“ Now we all know the Japanese tend to think crazy stuff, but the thing this time is: he actually did! So let me introduce the plot with a quick, sensible question: What do you do when one of your arms gets chopped off? Do you a) learn to live with it, b) get a prosthesis or, c) f*ck it and attach a gattling gun to the leftover stump? As I asked in such a farkesque manner, you can probably tell what the answer might be. While this is basically a cool thing and probably the secret dream of many men around the world, it’s kind of disturbing to see a hot-ass Japanese schoolgirl weilding that monstrosity. She’s the kind of girl where your feeling (a.k.a. that huge gun on her arm) tells you you shouldn’t get involved with her, but you do anyway. After all, she’s cute. She can’t be that bad, right? Well, obviously she can. Don’t believe me? Here are some astoundingly creative ways to hurt someone I learned from the movie:

1)Sticking an iron pipe into your enemies mouth, then kicking it through the back of their head.
2)Powerdrilling someone’s chest
3)Cutting off someone’s fingers and making him eat them as Sushi
4)Surprising someone by putting their friend’s head in the soup, then sticking a knife into the back of their head to make them puke intestines. Now that’s a spicy meatball!

I mean, come on…seriously…WHAT THE HELL? The last one’s so disgusting it almost makes me want to puke intestines myself. Now I’m not one to be opposed to some good gore thrown into a film. But with this one I’m impressed and disgusted at the same time at the morbid creativity of Iguchi. Well that and the fact that I can’t read any of the English subtitles, because the whole movie is in Japanese, so I can’t understand a goddamn thing of what they’re saying, leaving me with one and a half hour of Yakuzas, Ninjas and Schoolgirls angrily screaming at each other.

I can’t even be bothered to watch the whole thing, I just skipped through the boring scenes that might’ve given the story a more sensible context. For now I can only think of two reasons to watch the whole thing: You’re unusually horny for Asian chicks with guns, or you’re just a sick bastard with too much time on his hands.

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1050160/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSpCWJnnWVI

Iron Man - An honest review by an honest man

Lenne — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:30:21 +0000

Even if you’re not familiar with the comics (I’m not either), when a movie is titled „Iron Man“ you surely expect a movie chock-full of action, explosions, a badass main character and as little as possible of that annoying story-thingy. Only the manliest of ingredients. Well, I’ve got good news for you, my Testosteron-packed friends: „Iron Man“ delivers!
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is the world’s leading weapons’ merchant. He’s admired by the freedom-, and of course, gun-loving people of America, pleased by the beautiful women he happens to come across and spends most of his time in his „garage“ (it’s actually a high-tech lab) or driving around giving manly speeches. Pretty great life, isn’t it? Definitely. Well…at least until he gets kidnapped by terrorists and thrown into their prison, which is actually a small cave somewhere in the desert. Oh and yeah, they’re from the Middle East (duh!). They force him to build a powerful weapon for them, but instead he treats himself to a nice iron suit, hence the name of the movie. From that day forward he’s not the man he used to be. Instead of manufacturing weapons to kill people, he now kills the evil people who bought them. It’s still basically killing, but seeing a beardy old rapist getting shot in the face just spares you the moral implications one might have.

So that’s about everything that can be said about the plot without spoiling too much. It’s a pretty basic storyline, one that you would expect from every usual superhero-movie. But it gets the job done! When my friend jammed the DVD into his player and we toasted with two good, cheap German „Öttingers“ I wanted manly entertainment. And let me assure you the beer was the only thing containing trace-amounts of estrogen in the room. Tony Stark is just such a hard-ass character. I admit, he’s a real asshole at times. He’s being a jerk to women, he doesn’t care about the advice of anyone and well…he likes to kill people. However, who hasn’t dreamed of having sex with a hot female New York Times reporter, telling your colleagues you don’t give a sh*t about what they think and give some dispickable low-lifes what’s coming to them?
This movie definitely doesn’t set the bar for moral standards, nor does it teach you a healthy lesson about life, nor does it tell a deep story. It’s just about coolness and action. Oh, and before I forget, about the beauty of Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is Stark’s personal assistant and does whatever he tells her for no appearent reason. „Iron Man“ appeals to the most archaic parts of men. And that’s what makes it so entertaining.

Official Site: http://ironmanmovie.marvel.com/

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgzIM-9lfA

Futurama: Bender’s Big Score Review

Lenne — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:32:02 +0000

After being temporarily cancelled by Fox, Matt Groening and the team behind Futurama decided to release four movies straight to DVD. The first, and until now only one of them is “Bender’s Big Score”. Bender “Rodriguez” himself finds the best-fitted introduction: “We’re back, baby!”
After a short intro to subliminally (well, not so subliminal actually) show how stupid Fox was to cancel them, the movie quickly sets up some important basic story concepts. Hermes gets his body crushed after a limbo contest, Fry has a tattoo of Bender on his behind for some reason, and Bender’s “mind” gets taken over by evil scamming aliens after trying to watch Roborotica, and these same aliens trick Hubert Farnsworth into “selling” Planet Express to them. For free. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Lisa falls in love with a guy named Lars, making fry sad and of course, angry. Yes, that’s a lot of things to keep track of. But it gets so much more complicated. As it turns out, the tattoo on Fry’s butt holds the key to time travel. Not too shabby, eh? From here on, story-wise, all hell breaks lose. I’m not even going to try to explain it, because that would take more time than I have to write, and you have to read this review. Just know there will be lots of unexpected twists, confusion, and a lot of explanation along the way. (more…)

Superbad Movie Review

Lenne — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:59:47 +0000

Two horny best friends, two totally screwed-up cops, one geek committing ID-fraud, booze, and of course, hot women! That’s the recipe for “Superbad”, directed by Greg Mottola. Got it? Okay, I’m going to get into a little more detail here. Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are two unfitting boys who’re nearing the end of their high school years. While both of them secretly fear losing their best friend when going to college, they seem a hell of a lot more concerned about having sex with the girls of their dreams, Jules (Emma Stone) and Becca (Martha MacIsaac), who just happen to frequent the very same school as they do. Not surprisingly, all previous attempts to get closer to them, if there were any at all, have failed miserably. But hope is just around the corner! Jules plans a huge goodbye-party for all the graduates, and through lucky circumstances Seth and Evan are not only invited, but also given the honorable task to buy liquor for the party. This is where Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), the geek, comes into play. Some uberleet friend of him was able to fake his ID, raising him to legal booze-buying age, and subtly renaming him „McLovin“. When he tries to shop at the local store, it’s coincidently robbed, and the cops to show up (Bill Hader and Seth Rogen) take Fogell for a ride in their police car. No, not for convicting him. But because McLovin “is a bad-ass name”. From there, the real quest begins. (more…)

Heat Movie Review

Lenne — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:45:07 +0000

It seems like the typical crime story: Ruthless gangster versus obsessed cop. But few films manage to execute that formula as well as “Heat”.
Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is the leader of a small crime syndicate in Los Angeles. But although they might be ’small’ in personell, they pull off extremely lucrative heists. After they’ve robbed a money transporter and shot its three inmates, Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is engaged catch them. But the deeper he gets into the investigation, his seemingly professional goal becomes a more and more personal. He wants to bring down Neil McCauley at all costs. His obsession gets so out of hand, he doesn’t have a moment of time left for his wife Justine (Diane Venora), threatening to destroy their marriage. Meanwhile McCauley finds a new girlfriend for himself. Eady (Amy Brenneman) feels it’s true love, although McCauley’s motto is quite clear: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” But does he really have the mental strength to just walk away from her when things get risky? And will Lt. Hanna be able to take McCauley down and save his marriage? I recommend you watch the movie to get the answers. (more…)

Welcome Cinemen and Cinewomen!

Lenne — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:46:49 +0000

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