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the_stardogg
Reviews
Strangeheart (2003)
Fun movie, A- for effort
I really wish I could be there, in one of these two pubs around Dallas, on the very evening one of these guys first came up with the idea of making a "Braveheart" movie.
"Heyyy, just that you know, the next round is on me, and tomorrow you will show up in my backyard for a historical movie!!" "Yay!" He must have been quite convincing as an impressive number of extras showed up in some of the big scenes... but then, maybe it was the beer Guinness donated...
The result is great for what it is, the acting is what you would expect it to be, the gags and the ripping is inventive and sometimes absolutely crazy, and there are even a few dance and music numbers - watch out for the English King's performance! Hilarious. Only the sound could have used some post-production work.
IF I hadn't seen a comparable fan /spoof movie called "STAR WRECK - IN THE PIRKINNING" a week earlier, I would have awarded this Strangeheart a golden A+ for effort, but what those Star Trek fans achieved is mesmerizing, professional and mind-boggling fun. Maybe - considering Strangehearts tagline - those Finnish Trek fans were a little more sober...?
Muttertag (1994)
bleeding souls
I can think of only one other Austrian movie (or German, for that matter) that dives so deep into social deserts and black parts of the common human, and that is "Hundstage", which could easily be described as "social porn" and is equivalent to Todd Solondz' work, yet darker and more dire. In Muttertag, it's more satire, but with many more levels, and none of them pleasant. You live with a group of people from a lower social level, the Neugebauers in the center of this strange and wicked community, living in a notorious apartment estate in Vienna. Their part of town is satirically portrayed like one of the antechambers of hell - for Austrian standards - a socialistic community of concrete and locked doors, where everybody tries to seclude himself and his dark secrets from everyone else. No Walzer, no Mozart, no Viennese courtesy, no post-monarchistic postcard nostalgia and no hope. Everyday life seems to throw everything at the Neugebauers to bring them down, and everything unfolds right before Mother's Day, which provides a certain forced traditional background for this tour-de-force, like Christmas being a battlefield for family conflicts. And just like at Christmas the private tension induces riot-like scenes in the community, in the supermarket, at church, at the gas station and in school. Satirical portrait with some of the finest Austrian comedians and actors, that will offer a haunting, outlandish and desperate experience for non-Austrians and a mirror of the soul for the locals. Remember, people of Vienna, "another social layer" does not mean that these people aren't living nearby, and their issues apply to you as well, regardless of your social and educational background.
C(r)ook (2004)
entertaining yet too German to be a winner
Austrian movies have a certain something, "the" something that the renowned Silentium earlier this year managed to communicate to the audience. The something, well, it is this slightly morbid, self-conscious and a little mischievous attitude of Austrian actors and directors. There is a saying "The Austrian has a close personal relationship with his pimples", which must sound quite amusing outside of Austria.
While all this adds a certain charm to local productions, c(r)ook fails to deliver it, and that is mainly because of it's German cast, which -as usual- fails completely to trade on anything that is not German. Moritz Bleibtreu is a welcome change of pace, but all the other Germans, were they really necessary? There is even a cheesy voice-over to camouflage Duringer's Viennese accent for the German audience, which is so completely annoying that it almost made us quit the movie and leave. 6/10
Casshern (2004)
eye-mazing and original
In an alternate reality a military regime has taken over the eurasian continent. War and pollution threaten everyone's life and so a project is started to find "the" cure for all those people's problems. A scientist suggests his Neo-Cell technology, which is capable of rejuvenating, reassembling and reviving dead or injured men. A military sponsor is found and the early experiments produce a group of neohumans, who get loose and flee into the mountains. That is the point where the story throws in two ecstasy pills and the anime comic basis of Casshern breaks through and doesn't let go of our eyes ever again. The movie is extremely stylish and schizophrenic, it has a touch of the video clips in computer games, merged with a screen style like a musical (Pink Floyd The Wall)and action scenes that are a so unbelievably perfect "realization" of anime that it seems you are watching GhostitShell2 with TheMatrix layered over it. Don't even think you'd be able to follow the seemingly simple comic plot every scene, you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to process who is currently in the picture in front of which stunning background. Not everyone will like this, for sure, it far too outlandish and a real challenge, at the same time the seemingly comical story might scare some viewers away or the overall style of the movie, that seems almost like the distinct brushstroke of a painter, might not please everyone. Even animefans will need some time to get used to the fight sequences, as realism always steps behind for style and effect here. From an artist's point of view a great, challenging anime comic on screen.