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Review: Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, 2012.

When I started watching Hotel Transylvania (2012) I was unaware that it would take such a comical stab at my current situation. In just four days time, I am moving to Transylvania, after having traveled there with my backpack last year. Seeing fellow 21-year old backpacker Jonathan stumble upon Dracula’s hotel in true backpacker style, while passing through the same regions I visited really made me fall in love with this movie! Jonathan’s endless stories of ‘inspiring travel’ and his undying love for his backpack were hilarious. It reminded me a lot of how crazy packer life can be!

The movie itself is a neat comedy that takes a bunch of stale, wasted monsters and gives them refreshing new personalities. The movie introduces Dracula as the over-protective father of his 118-year-old daughter Mavis. The Romanian hotel Dracula runs is occupied by all sorts of monsters looking for peace and tranquility in a place without pesky humans with pitchforks. The guests are a pleasure to watch and especially Wayne, Dracula’s worn-down werewolf friend (played by Steve Buscemi), adds a lot of fun to the movie as the father of far over a dozen pups. I was surprised to find so many funny references in this new animated film and therefore it feels like a good recommendation right before moving into Dracula’s hotel myself!

Official poster (Credit: Hotel Transylvania)

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Review: Hasta la Vista! (2011)

Directed by Geoffrey Enthoven, 2011.

Hasta la Vista! (2011) is an extraordinary take on the road movie. The Belgian movie tells the story of three twentysomething men who are coping with a physical handicap. Philip suffers from paraplegia, Jozef is almost completely blind, and Lars has an incurable brain tumor that paralyzed his body. Worried that they might all die as virgins, the three friends plan to overcome their disabilities and travel to Spain where they hope to visit a brothel specialized in taking care of ‘their kind of people’.

After drawing up a solid plan and finding a tour operator who will help them get to Spain, Philip and his friends introduce the idea to their parents as a tour ‘to visit the French and Spanish vineyards’. Like Achtste-groepers huilen niet (2011), the movie combines a sense of sadness with a feeling of true optimism. The boys show how a strong spirit guided by an undying friendship can overcome any disability. It is quite funny, endearing, and at times terribly frustrating to see how three disabled boys manage to travel western Europe. The acting is great and gives life to the obstinacy of the three friends, doing what most non-disabled people can only dream of doing.

Official poster (Credit: Hasta la Vista!)

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Review: Achtste-groepers huilen niet (2012)

Directed by Dennis Bots, 2012.

The past decades, Dutch Cinema suffered a bad reputation among the people in the Netherlands. After watching more than three hundred Dutch movies, I can say with certainty: whichever Dutch person claims that the Netherlands doesn’t produce good movies probably never watched the right ones. True, we are guilty of making shamefully bad movies such as Costa! (2001) and Dood Eind (2006) but this can mostly be blamed on those Dutch moviegoers that would rather see Dutch hillbillies curse at each other than watch a thought-provoking movie like Het Echte Leven (2008.)”

Achtste-groepers huilen niet (or: Cool Kids Don’t Cry) is a very realistic display of what primary school is like for Dutch kids in their last grade. Unlike many other (Dutch) children’s movies, it takes itself and its target audience seriously, which is a very welcome relief. The plot concerns Akkie, an 11-year old girl who loves playing soccer. When she is diagnosed with leukemia it strongly affects her life and the lives of the parents and children around her. Hanna Obbeek, the 14-year old actress who portrays Akkie is amazing to watch: very rarely do child actors play such strong roles. Akkie is a vivid, lively, and optimistic force of energy throughout the movie. The strength of her spirit while facing an awful disease is inspiring. The dynamics between Akkie and bully Joep (Nils Verkooijen) further solidify this movie as a small Dutch gem.

Official poster (Credit: Achtste-groepers huilen niet)

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Review: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

Directed by Gareth Carrivick, 2009.

In the last two decades, there certainly was no shortage of time travel movies. Some turned out great, and some were pretty bad. Time travel movies – and time travel in general – always contain at least one paradox, namely a ‘version’ of the grandfather paradox. Someone from the future causes something in the past which renders the future that changed the past impossible. Every time travel movie has its own rules. Good times travel movies know their own rules, and above all, their own paradoxes. They play into these paradoxes, explain them, or at the very least acknowledge them. Looper (2012) does neither one of those things. The movie is so inherently inconsistent about its own rules of cause and effect that the only thing there is left to figure out is why it has such a high rating on IMDb.

Making a time travel movie requires a good script, and above all a story that at least to some point challenges your intelligence to figure out the plot. After seeing Looper I was in dire need to watch such a time travel movie. Therefore, I turned to Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009) which is, naturally, about time travel. Both the screenwriters and the characters in the movie themselves knew the rules, knew the paradoxes, and decided to have a little bit of meta-humorous fun with it. Save yourself a box-office ticket to disappointment, and watch this movie instead of Looper… Don’t you wish you could go back in time to warn yourself to wait for the DVD release sometimes?

Official poster (Credit: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel)

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Review: P2 (2007)

Directed by Franck Khalfoun, 2007.

Christmas is coming and it’s time to get into the holiday spirit! The short-titled P2 (2007) takes place on the eve of Christmas and introduces Angela, a young businesswoman who plans to spend the night with her family in Jersey. After leaving her office block later than expected, things take a wrong turn on parking lot level P2. The movie offers everything you need for the holidays: a few gifts, a fancy dress, a few classic Christmas tunes, a kidnapping, and a lot of blood.

P2 is build up as a formulaic horror film and doesn’t excel in any specific area, but it rises above many other films with a similar premise, due to its gritty and atmospheric setting and its strong reliance on the acting of Rachel Nichols and Wes Bentley, the films only stars. Wes Bentley’s performance reverberates the creepiness of his role as the neighbors’ son in American Beauty (1999) and Rachel Nichols, who is best known for her action roles in”G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) and Conan the Barbarian (2011) plays Bentley’s victim. The movie strips the actress of her elegance and shows how both she and her captor descend into madness on a ‘cold, cold, lonely Christmas night.’

Official poster (Credit: P2)

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Review: Diabolik (1968)

Directed by Mario Bava, 1968.

“Holy heart failure,” Robin called out. The children laughed. It was 1966 and Batman was a shoddy superhero on a small tv-screen. Comics were meant for children and Hollywood refused to take a serious financial bet on the superhero genre. In contrast, Terence Young’s spy thriller Dr. No (1962) and its sequels proved the spy genre was booming. As a result, Italian director Mario Bava took it upon himself to adapt the Italian Diabolik comic book series into a movie.

Diabolik is not a hero, nor is has he any ‘superpowers.’ He is a criminal: morally corrupted and arrogant. Above all, Diabolik seems to be the embodiment of European promiscuity. His relationship with his female counterpart Eva seems to be based on sex and eroticism. The best description of Diabolik would be that he is a demented version of James Bond. What makes Diabolik (1968) so much fun to watch is definitely not its plot, but its twisted portrayal of the anti-spy and his lover in a series of strong scenes that have become cult classics in their own right – including a love scene involving a revolving bed and $10 million in cash.

In addition, the costume design by Piero Gherardi and Luciana Marinucci continues to surprise!

Official poster (Credit: Diabolik)

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Review: ParaNorman (2012)

Directed by Chris Butler & Sam Fell, 2012.

We are truly at the dawn of a zombie apocalypse. In April, the Evil Dead (2013) will crawl out of their grave for the fourth time, while Brad Pitt tries to halt a dawning zombie pandemic that sets the world on a crash course towards a social meltdown in World War Z (2013), all the while Teresa Palmer starts shagging the undead, Twilight-style in Warm Bodies (2013), and Milla Jovovich plans to take out the dead again and again and again and again Resident Evil 6 & 7 (TBA). So who’s to say the Maya’s where wrong?

ParaNorman (2012) is one of several animated features that embraced the (zombie) horror theme this year, forecasting 2013’s zombie blockbuster apocalypse. It’s almost as if the pandemic of the undead (predicted by websites such as 9gag, 4chan, and Reddit) is slowly growing up, first targeting the young, then taking out the elder. ParaNorman however proves to be anything but a children’s movie. The film displays beautiful dark visuals and has a strong script at its heart. The story, which features the eleven-year-old Norman who is able to speak to the dead, might sound simplistic, but Norman and his friends will give you a really good taste for the dead.

Official poster (Credit: ParaNorman)

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Review: Rings (2005)

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, 2005.

The psychological horror film The Ring (2002) and its sequel The Ring Two (2005) were derived from the Japenese film series of the same name. Both these series were in turn based on writer Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel Ringu. In the series, a mysterious videotape seems to cause the death of anyone who views it. After the video stops playing, a phone rings telling the viewer ‘you will die in seven days.’ Both the American and the Japanese adaptation of the novel were strong, original horror movies that scared audiences across the world. The sequels in both series felt a bit more derivative, and were enjoyable at best.

To coincide with the theatrical release of The Ring Two, a re-release of the DVD for The Ring was issued, which also featured a short movie titled Rings (2005). The 16-minute short takes place between the first and the second American “Ring”-film and tells the story of a subculture surrounding the deadly videotape. Each member of the group purposely watches the tape and waits to see how close they can get to the seven day-deadline before passing on the curse to someone else. Rings is more thrilling, more haunting, and more intriguing than its feature-length counterparts. The short is shot in a different style than the films and gives off a creepy, distressing vibe. It is unfortunate that Rings was never extended into a feature-length film, but the short can still be viewed on YouTube today.

Official poster (Credit: Rings)

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Review: Kdo chce zabít Jessii? (1966)

Directed by Václav Vorlíček, 1966.

Since I’m writing my master thesis on the socio-political relevance of the superhero movies of the 21st century, I felt required to watch those last few remaining superhero movies that I haven’t seen yet. After a week filled with small superhero movie gems from the early years of cinema, including early renditions of Superman (1951), Batman (1966), and Spider-Man (1977) I watched Václav Vorlíček’s Czech movie”Kdo chce zabít Jessii? (or: “Who Wants to Kill Jessie?”).

The film breaks with the domestic conventions of everyday life under the highly oppressive Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. A scientist finds new inspiration in a series of Jessie-comic books (illustrated by comic book artist Kája Saudek) after which his wife and fellow scientist accidentally manifest his dreams: Jessie and the two archenemies are brought into the real world. Playboy cover girl Olga Schoberová takes on the role of what might just be the first cinematic superheroine ever and Juraj Visny plays a joyfully evil version of Superman. The film brilliantly brings the conventions of comic books into the real world, including text balloons and sound effects. Vorlíček goal was ‘to make the Czech people collectively aware that they were participants in a system of oppression and incompetence which had brutalized them all.’ Blissfully amoral and a little weird, Kdo chce zabít Jessii? is definitely worth a watch!

Official poster (Credit: Kdo chce zabít Jessii?)

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Review: 4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile (2007)

Directed by Cristian Mungiu, 2007.

In 1967 Romania’s last Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu issued ‘Decree 770’ restricting abortion and birth control in his country in order to stimulate the growth of the population. The aim was to expand the nation from 23 to 30 million inhabitants. In the years between the issuing and reversal of the decree in 1989, over 9,000 women died due to complications arising from illegal abortions. Mungiu’s 4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile (or: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) is set in 1987, and follows student Otilia Mihartescu as she helps her roommate Găbiţa Dragut to arrange an illegal abortion.

Without any judgment, the film is an all too real portrait of the difficult choice that comes with abortion and the sacrifices it requires. 4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile allows us to experience the feeling of oppression that lingered over both men and women in the eighties in Romania. The mood of the film is strengthened by its realism, which stems from long lingering shots accompanied by a flow of natural-sounding dialogue. The sense of fear surrounding illegal abortion is scarier than any monster will ever be, and yet it is something many people in the world are still faced with on a daily basis. Mungiu’s movie is a gripping study of social history.

Official poster (Credit: 4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile)

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