riddion Reviews

Firefly (2002–2003)

One of the best shows in the last 20 years

[10/10 · 30 August 2013]

This is without a doubt one of the best TV shows of the last 20 years. Actually I first saw the movie Serenity first and then the TV show. I loved the movie and wanted more, especially after hearing Whedon on the commentary track referencing stuff from the TV show.

So I then bought the TV show on Blu-ray. At first I thought "What exactly is it? Sci-fi? Western?" I then realized that it is both, a perfect hybrid. The first time I saw the whole TV series I liked it, the second time I liked it even more, then the third time I started to love it. And then the fourth and fifth time I really loved it.

This is a show that gets better with each viewing. You realize new depths to each character every time you see it. I love writing like that, be it TV or movie (although you mostly would see that kind of writing in great movies).

I can understand why Fox canceled it, but they should have had more faith in it's creator and producer. He is creator of Buffy! This is a TV show that I will keep on re-watching again and again because I want to experience the world and characters again.

I love well told stories and this is as good as it gets.

The Wolverine (2013)

What a mess!

[2/10 · 5 August 2013]

I have just seen this for the second time in the hope of it making more sense the second time around. It does not.

I tried to view it like one of characters wasn't quite what he/she appeared to be, but it didn't help.

The plot of this is drivel from about 20% into it. The first 20% was interesting where we just saw Logan coping with what happened and what he did in X-men 3. When he arrives in Japan the movie bogs down to drivel.

It has action sequences that doesn't make sense with uninteresting people. There is one exception to this. One character is interesting, Yukio. She is the only one that displays any real sense of having a past, and being a real character with her own emotions and sense of self.

The plot doesn't make any sense what so ever, even the second time watching it. So when the movie moves towards the climax of the story it so uninteresting that I was about to sleep. And by the time the main bad guy has the final showdown with Wolverine it is very predictable how this is going to end.

Actually the most interesting scene in the entire movie is at the very end, after the main plot has been concluded, when we see a couple of familiar characters from previous X-men movies in an airport. This little scene has more fire and more character that it seems to be written and directed by other people than the movie proper.

I would most definitely say that this is the worst of the X-men movies. Even Origins: Wolverine is better than this. With the other Marvel movies, like Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man, and DC's Dark Knight Trilogy we know by now that superhero movies can be really great.

I would not recommend anyone watching this piece of nonsense.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

It could be great but became so bad

[2/10 · 20 March 2013]

I thought this movie was so bad, much like Jackson's King Kong was really bad. It was SO overlong that I sat in the movie theater and pondered when it would end. I will most certainly NOT see the rest of series. I know that if Jackson had followed the book (with some adaptation changes to keep the continuity with LOTR in check, like the Rivendell sequence) and made a two hour movie adaptation I would be very happy. Considering that the original book wasn't a great masterpiece like LOTR was a single movie would be the best. It seems like that Jackson was SO preoccupied with subplots that he lost his way with the main plot (again like with King Kong). This was simply a bad overlong movie made by a now very pretentious film maker.

Monsters (2010)

One of the most boring movies I have seen in decades

[1/10 · 18 April 2011]

I am extremely surprised at the critical reception this movie has gotten. Because of it's critical acclaim I walked into the movie theater hoping to see a great movie. What I got was a movie that was so boring and full of so many clichés that I began to wonder if it was just me. My friends also felt the exact same way, it turned out. Practically nothing happens at all in the entire movie. The story is extremely predictable. The dialog is equally bad. One has to look far and wide to see a movie with worse dialog than this. The hero is very unlikable and dumb, in everything he does. While watching the movie it was extremely clear after 10 minutes that these two main characters had to come together, even though there was no chemistry at all between them. It is just mandatory in a movie of this sort. But the way it was handled was so bad and in an unbelievable way. At the end when we finally got to see an alien it was like watching some extremely bad TV CGI at work. It seemed like the director didn't know at all of what is was doing. An extremely badly handled love story, a story about aliens without seeing them, save for three or four very short scene always at night, and an unbelievability of what the world is like when invaded by a aliens.

I would have loved to know more about the aliens, if they had intelligence, what they thought about humans, why they attack humans. Starship Troopers at least had the intelligence to spoof about the attitude toward something that is not human (and i loved Starship Troopers). I love any movie with a good script, good director and/or good actors to play the parts. This movie had neither. The movie's 90 minutes felt like three hours.

I would advise people to steer clear of this piece of crap. There is nothing redeeming about this movie. If I could demand my money back from the movie theater, I would. Don't go and see this movie.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Quite overrated

[4/10 · 8 June 2009]

I am so glad that I didn't buy this movie on Blu-ray when it first came out even though I am a fan of both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. I saw it first on Canal Plus Film HD in really good picture and OK sound.

The movie looks great with the normal dark Burton atmosphere. I love the old musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and all the other great musical stars of the golden age of the Hollywood musical motion picture in the 40s and 50s. But I really don't like the modern musicals like Hairspray, Chicago and this movie. This movie is the best of them all because of Burton's handling of the story and his sets looking like sets. I really don't like these movies with people singing and dancing in the middle of city that is filmed in the city. There are exceptions, of course, like "West Side Story" and "On The Town". Musicals are not meant to be realistic. You can see that in all the great Arthur Freed musicals. But every musical now has people singing and dancing on location in the big city which looks so stupid. This is where this movie towers above them all.

But what I don't like about this movie is the mediocre singing of all the actors. Why not have really great singing actors do the parts? There are so many really great singing actors that could have made a name for themselves in the movies and the studio could have more stars to build up and make money of. Instead Warners and Burton chose to have very well known actors sing badly.

The songs were really good and really well integrated into the plot. I never felt like the story stopped when they burst out in song. But you need people that can sing or else everything falls apart. The producers and Burton should have made the same decision that the producers and director of "My Fair Lady" did when they decided to dub Audrey Hepburn in the singing because they felt that Hepburn didn't have the voice necessary. I have heard the temp track of Hepburn singing one of the songs and she sounded better than either Helena Bonham Carter or Johnny Depp. She was even musical. Carter and Depp were not.

Being such a fan of both Burton and Depp I was very disappointed and I was very glad that I didn't buy the movie. Since the singing was such an integral part of the movie it ruined the whole experience of what could have been a really great movie.

Angels & Demons (2009)

Very good but too much of the novel was removed

[5/10 · 22 May 2009]

I must say that I liked this movie. I liked the book also. I thought the book was better than the Da Vinci code with one exception. Silas was a much more interesting antagonist than the assassin in Angels & Demons. To follow the story of Silas was very interesting, I thought.

Back to this movie, I thought the changes made was justified and made sense in the movie.

One element that I sorely missed was one of the major motives of the main villain. If you haven't seen the movie or read the book please read no further and skip to the next paragraph. I missed that the camerlengo was the pope's son, and that the camerlengo's misunderstanding that the pope had fathered a child through sex was truly sacrilege and his big motivation for doing what he did. The camerlengo's appearance as a Christ figure after the antimatter annihilates was also something that I missed.

Spoiler over. It was great to see all the sights in Rome, having previously been there last year on vacation. But I wished that Howard would slow down a little in his pacing of the movie so the movie wouldn't go by so fast.

So despite the changes made and the things that I missed I thought it was a excellent movie that was well written and well executed. A movie that I will definitely see again, probably twice.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Laughably bad writing, direction and acting

[5/10 · 24 October 2008]

I was hoping for a grand end of the prequel trilogy of my favorite movies when I was growing up. I still remember being a 10 year old kid sitting in the Colosseum movie theater in Oslo being totally at awe in watching Return of the Jedi back in 1983. It has always been the greatest movie experience of my life and it always will be. I now think that Empire is even better (I was too young to see it in 1980) and have bought the original trilogy on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD (and I will buy them when they come to Blu-ray). This prequel trilogy was just such a waste. All the talent in front of and behind the camera, except Lucas, was wasted on these movies. I have written a review on the first prequel movie and I must say now that I feel even worse about it, episode 2 and this movie. I have seen all three of the prequel movies several times now and I must say that they contain so much clichés that it is almost frightening. I cannot say how many times I cringe when I see these horrors that are disguised as Star Wars movies. When I see the pod race in the first movie I keep thinking that I am seeing a sort of desert live-action Wipe-Out race.

But I will keep my comments to this movie. All aspects of the movie are such drivel. The worst things are the script and the direction, both by Lucas. The last movie George Lucas directed before episode 1 is the 1977 Star Wars. That's over 20 years of not directing any movie. His third time around he is still bad. It seems like the movie is all over the place. I read another review on this site and he was totally right when he wrote that the wipes were all over the place. This bad editing is the result of a bad script that needed trimming and believability. Not to mention the truly horrible dialog.

What everyone was waiting for, Anakin's seduction into the dark side, was done so badly. Hayden Christensen's ham acting didn't help, but with a superior director (basically any of Hollywood's good directors would do a better job) the acting could have been improved on. When Anakin kills Count Dooku in the beginning of the movie I keep thinking "That's it? No more remorse about killing another human being in cold blood?". We see no conscience at work at all. Anakin's seduction by Palpatine to the dark side is also very unbelievably done. When Anakin cuts off Windu's arm Palpatine screams "Power! Unlimited power!!" and throws lightning at him so he is thrown far into the city. Can't Anakin see him for what he is, a manipulative, deceitful evil man that is behind everything that has transpired all his life? No. All he says is "What have I done?". Everything Palpatine has been pretending to care about has been a lie. His mentor is the very evil he has been fighting all his life. Does he reject him because of this? No. OK. He wants to save Padme's life, but how can he know that this ability about saving people from death wasn't a lie too? The transformation from good to bad is done so badly. It was very cool to hear the great James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader when he put on the famous suit, but I cringed at the the dialog spoken. The romance between Anakin and Padme is also handled like a bad high school play with acting and dialog to match. The technical side of the movie is second to none. The effects and sound design are really great.

When I was a teenager I kept thinking about how Anakin Skywalker had turned to evil since he was really a good person. How can a good person willingly do all these terrible things? He was my favorite villain of all and he still is. I think I have to pretend like these horrible prequel movies never was made. I just hope that the original trilogy will appear on Blu-ray in their original incarnations and not with all the out-of-place digital CGI work what were inserted into the movies back in 1997. This movie was just a letdown that I think it is better to think that it and the two previous movies weren't made at all.

The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

Like a two or three part episode from the TV show

[6/10 · 2 August 2008]

I didn't have much expectation of the movie, but I was hoping for a much bigger version of the TV show. However the movie was just like any other episode of the television show, just the normal ordeal that Mulder and Scully went through before. When the movie was over I didn't have a feeling like I was watching a movie for two hours. There were no big stakes for Mulder and Scully to overcome. There were just the normal, for the TV show, stakes about Scully's disbelieve in the paranormal and Mulder's inability to not believe the paranormal. This, however, is not enough when so much of the exact same thing has been worked out so many times in the nine years of the TV show. I feel that for a TV show to really be made into a successful movie, there has to be changes made to the scale, to the main plot and the main characters' challenges. The reason why Star Trek 2 was so successful is the big change of the scale the characters' challenges and plot compared to the TV show. I was just excepting something much more. Maybe Chris Carter should have stepped down as director and handed the director chair to a movie director.

24 (2001–2010)

This is not good television

[4/10 · 12 December 2006]

I liked this series when it first aired on TV. But as a watched it one week after the other I began to dislike more and more. The writing was OK. The concept can seem to be ideal of television. Eventually I find myself thinking that this is the worst type of fiction television, where a viewer has to watch every single episode of a series for the show at all to make any sense. I love the well written television series that deal with a story on its own each week and get to know the characters that way. You don't have to watch every single episode to understand the last couple of episodes. This is what I don't like at about shows like 24.

The first three seasons weren't badly written. I won't say that it was well written. This is not, after all, Robert Ludlum or Ken Follett. But the writing on the last two seasons were so dismal. The characters were supposed to be professionals, the best of their field in the world. Why then did they do many almost criminally bad mistakes, one after another, the last ten or so episodes? The stories were dragged to the extreme just to fit it in 24 episodes. There is also another matter. With the main characters being awake all night, fighting, hacking networks, and other stuff that they do, none seemed to even remotely tired after doing that for 10, 14, 17, even 20 hours.

It is an interesting concept about real time stories being put into action, but I think that it would be much better, both story wise and credibly wise, that the stories was 12 hours or something like that. The storied didn't have to drag and could be more tightly written, and the characters didn't have to look like they didn't know what they were doing.

I guess with this commentary I haven't joined the praise of this show and am therefore in the minority, but I felt that I had to disagree with the majority when I feel this way about it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)

What a great show

[9/10 · 30 September 2004]

I have been hooked on this show ever since I rented a couple of episodes on video over 10 years ago. The series was shown on Norwegian Television, but they stopped it at the end of the forth season. I then bought the whole series, one season after another on DVD. I watched all the episodes, and I realized how great this show is. Over the course of the series, the characters deepen and it gets to be more and more interesting. There is the mishap of the second season, but although it was the worst season, it did have some very good episodes, like 'The Measure of a Man' and 'Q Who?'. I have seen this show now five times from start to finish (and I think that will be seeing much more), but I have found that the episodes which are much action oriented, like the double episode 'Chain of Command', was quite boring. I love episodes like 'Darmok', 'The Inner Light', 'Disaster', 'The Nth Degree', 'First Contact' and 'Who Watches The Watchers?' where the crew meet new races or find themselves in a situation that they are not used to.

This is a series that can be appealing to people who like to see action in their science fiction and people who like to see, meet and know new races in their science fiction. This was a fantastic show.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Hugely underrated

[6/10 · 7 September 2004]

I am a big Star Trek fan and I have loved it from the first moment I saw it. I remember seeing Star Trek the first time with Star Trek 4 - The Voyage Home and The Next Generation series and I remember being at awe at the wonder of it all. It has been many years since then, and having watched the all the series and movies many times, especially the movies since they take such a sorter time to watch, it is clear to me that this movie depicts the very heart of Star Trek. Do we have the right to tell other people where to live and how to live? It is about tollerance and thinking of others before ourselves. The movies has so many magical moments and it very clearly dismisses the myth that the odd-numbered movies are worse than the others. It is not so much an action science fiction as First Contact, but Star Trek is NOT about action. I guess this is why I like the episodes with virtually no action and much character development and tests on the characters and how they cope with different situations the best. The movies does have some cliché dialog, like when Data saying 'Sattle up. Lock and load', but Star Trek is no famous for it's one-liners.

I may be in the minority when it comes to this movie, but I think it is important to defend this great Star Trek movie, especially since the really bad Nemisis came out. We have to judge this movies on it's own merits and on the idea of what Star Trek is all about.

Tristan und Isolde (1974)

A great performance

[8/10 · 12 September 2002]

I see that no one has commented on this filmed performance of Tristan & Isolde in Paris 1973, so I thought that I could write something.

I bought the DVD release of this performance not long ago, and it was quite an experience. The picture quality wasn't too good and so was the camera work. But Jon Vickers and Birgit Nilsson were so good in the their roles, it didn't matter about the picture. The sound too wasn't good, which was an annoyance. The whole performance, especially Vickers' act 3 performance, was exceptional. All were good, with a possible exception of Ruth Hesse as Brangane. Her tone wasn't too good several times and nothing compared to the best of era, Christa Ludwig. But she acted very well, so it was a very rewarding experience.

Two Sisters from Boston (1946)

Good melodrama with Allyson, Grayson and Melchior

[16 November 2000]

Being a great fan of Lauritz Melchior, I was extremely delighted to be able to see the few movies he made in 40's last night on TCM. The four times he sings in the picture were, for me, extreme highlights, especially when he sang 'Morgenlich leuchtend im rosigem Schein'.

June Allyson was a delight and the act she did in the night club, left me laughing. Alot was based on her innocence and it worked great.

Kathryn Grayson was also a delight and the film was very clearly made to showcase her and Melchior. But even so, she did come out in glorious voice and made her and Allyson's characters people to care about.

Jimmy Durante was also a great treat as the club manager and hood, using like phraise: 'I don't know nothin' alot to make people do what he wanted.

To finalise this comment, for me it was Lauritz Melchior who steeled the show every time he was on the screen, but the story was good with a happy ending where everyone had what they wanted.

Contact (1997)

One of the very best science fiction movies of the 90's

[14 June 2000]

When I first saw Contact, I breathed a breath and thought that finally did they make a very interresting sci-fi movie with real people and with a story that makes so much more sense than all those other stupid sci-fi movies out there nowadays, like Independance Day.

An alien civilization contacts earth and instructs us how to build an interstellar transport device, so that we can come to them. It is a very original idea. We meet Ellie (Jodie Foster) who dreams of reaching the stars all her life, motivated by the loss of her mother and later her father. We see how her obsession almost destroys her when all her wishes and dreams become real. There is life out there.

Then the film take a dramatic turn and all the world is presented. We see the American government trying to make it a matter that is better to be classified for national security (I almost laughed when I heard that). There are the religious fanatics that say that Jesus has returned and other religious fanatics saying that the Devil is tempting us with this. There is even a group of new nazis that's screaming that Hitler is alive, because of the signal containing the plans to the transport device was transmitted with the television transmission from the 1936 olympic games when was Hitler making his speech.

The movie so expertly realizes the social hysteria created by contact other than us. Both from the scientists, who say that we should examine the unknown, and other people, who say that we should leave the unknown alone.

And finally there is the ultra rich person (John Hurt) who can have transmitted and made all this happen just for his personal amusement.

There is so much going on in this movie. The special effect are so subtly inserted into it that we hardly notice them until at the end. I especially love the effect when young Ellie runs for the medicine cabinet after her father has collapsed. We hardly notice it, because it so subtle and we are so involved in the story and the character. That is what special effects is supposed to do, in my opinion. Not have a bunch of stuff that are obviously effects and have a thin story around it. The effects are supposed to help and assist the story and character, not the other way around.

When the movie ended I was left thinking of how magnificent this movie was. It had almost the same effect as 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' and 'Metropolis' (although very different films).

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

A good science fiction movie, but no Star Wars movie

[3/10 · 2 May 2000]

I have seen this movie seven times now, once at the theater and six times on Laserdisc, and I really must say that this is a great science fiction movie. But nothing else. To call this a Star Wars movies is a almost a mock on the original trilogy, which I have seen about 30 times each now. It has none of the magical storytelling that the other movies have.

Like I wrote earlier, it is a great science fiction movie. It has a good story with magnificent special effects to back the story up.

I think that it was a GREAT mistake to take the Jar-Jar Binks character to such lengths. I didn't find any of his so-called comic releaf the least funny. What I found the funniest thing about the movie was, once again, C-3PO. Especially when 3PO introduces himself to R2, when he says "What do you mean naked?" and then "My parts are showing?". I found that very funny indeed.

Something that I don't understand though is why did Jar-Jar go with Qui-Gon and Padme (Queen Amidala in disguise) to the city on Tatooine. Jar-Jar is a creature that is used to and lives in a very wet enviroment. Since his people live in the underwater city. Wouldn't it almost be torture for a creature like that outside in a desert enviroment like Tatooine? I guess he just came along to act as further comic releaf.

I sincerely hope that Lucas ditches that character unless he will have some function for the story. I would think that Jar-Jar only has a function in this movie when the action takes place around the plant Naboo. He did have a function to bring the Naboo and Gungan peoples together to defeat the trade federation. But other than that was he just a nuisance.

It didn't make me feel the same way as the original films did. None of the awe and wonder we saw in the first movies with colorful characters like Han Solo, Darth Vader, Yoda (who only has a minor function here), Governor Tarkin, Jabba the Hut, Boba Fett. And with wonderful ship designs like the Millenium Falcon, the Death Stars, Tie Fighters, Tie Bomber, Darth Vader's Tie Fighter, Darth Vader's flagship in The Empire Strikes Back, Cloud City. I guess the lists are endless. I didn't find any of this in this film. The ship that Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, the queen and everyone else traveled in was obviously a computer generated ship. It didn't even have a scratch after being shot at by the blockade.

I found that the actor who did the best work here was Ian McDiarmid who played Senator Palpatine and Lord Sideous, I suspect. I found this to be the case when I noticed the music after the forth time. Every time Lord Sideous appeared, the Emperor theme heard in Return of the Jedi is played. And since we all know that Senator Palpatine became the Emperor later in the story, we must assume that Senator Palpatine is Lord Sideous. He is obiously acting like he is very protective of his queen, but very discretly and with much finess manipulates the queen when she is on Coruscant.

There is also another wonderful scene when Anakin says goodbye to his mother. That is a heartbreaking scene with Anakin showing his reasons for becomming Darth Vader later in the story, his fears that he won't see his mother again. It is my suspiction that the Emperor/Senator Palpatine works on this in addition to his love for queen Amidala to make him give in and become his evil apprentice and work with him to eliminate almost every Jedi.

I have been writing enough now. But I must say again that is a good movie on it's own. But if you have been raised on Star Wars, like I have, I think you will find out that it is nothing compared to the original films.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Without a doubt THE greatest motion picture ever

[10/10 · 3 December 1999]

When I got the CAV Criterion Laserdisc version of this movie, I didn't have any expectations what so ever. When the movie was over, I was so tranced and entoxicated that I couldn't believe what I had just seen.

What I noticed the most was the photography. The gorgeous black & white photography by Gregg Toland. The music by Bernard Herrmann was also something that I noticed.

Having only seen Orson Welles in 'The Man Who Saw Tomorrow' before, I was excited to see such a young man in the title role, making his feature film debut with such tremendous energy and wonderful acting. I said to myself, 'How can a man so young make something like this?'. Welles, only 26 at the time, showed such understanding of the motion picture and how to make so something beautiful, funny, exciting and terrible. How could such a genius become such an outcast of Hollywood.

Even 17 years later in 'Touch of Evil', hadn't he lost any of his touch of how to make something extraordinary. Like Martin Scorsese, 'Citizen Kane that makes you believe that anything is possible on film'.

This is truly a motion picture that will be the greatest of all of motion picture for another 50 years. It will be the crowning and the most tragic achievement in the history of the motion picture. The crowning achievement because of the film's quality and groundbreaking means to achieve it. And the most tragic because of the way Orson Welles was welcomed into Hollywood. But we can thank God that at least one film of Welles' best was untouched by the shortsightness of the studios.

If you like to see a wonderful movies with a tragic, funny story and gorgous photography, go and see this fantastic film

Licence to Kill (1989)

One of the most horrible in the series

[7/10 · 22 October 1999]

This one, along with 'Live and let die', 'Moonraker' and 'A view to a kill' has to be one of most terrible James Bond movies in the series.

First of all, Timothy Dalton is the worst James Bond ever. He has zero charisma, no charm and totally unbelievable as a gentleman agent.

Second is the villain. Sanchez is so unbelievably horrible as a villain that Dr. Kananga seems like Goldfinger in comparison. The two female leads in the film too is awful as Bond girls. They're not only not that beautiful, but they're so full of selvpity that they almost make me sick. As for the story. It is ok for a Bond adventure. I guess James Bond is a character that takes on revenge on killed loved ones, hence Teresa.

So to conclude this comment. The only good thing about this James Bond caper is the story. EVERYTHING else is just so horrible i won't say anything more about that.

If you want to see a good James Bond, see 'The man with the golden gun', 'For your eyes only' or 'Octopussy' if you want to see Roger Moore and 'Goldfinger', 'From Russia with love' or 'Thunderball' if you want to see Sean Connery. 'On her majesty's secret service' too is one of the best Bond movies too with a good story, good villain, many beautiful girls and with a different, but very good Bond in George Lazenby. The two with Pierce Brosnan are also very good, but stay far away from the two with Timothy Dalton, he is THE worst of them all.

You've Got Mail (1998)

Delightful to see Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks together again

[14 June 1999]

When I saw this movie in the theater, I couldn't help noticing and thinking about the 1940 Lubitsch comedy 'The Shop Around The Corner'. Especially in the scene in and outside the cafe when Meg Ryan didn't know that Tom Hanks was her pen-pal/e-mail-pal. In scene in the street right before Tom Hanks walks in was it almost copied word for word of the dialog from the 1940 gem. But that aside, it was really refreshing Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan together on the screen again, a combination that working to very well in 'Sleepless in Seattle'. I think that the ending was a bit lame though. Not nearly as magical as the ending on 'Sleepless in Seattle' was. I was in tears when I saw that. But I guess this is Hollywood nowadays.

Sunrise (1927)

Such a simple and beautiful masterpiece.

[10/10 · 3 June 1999]

Before watching this movie on the new laserdisc edition from Fox, I had only read critical review and articles about it I had such high expectations on this movie, I was afraid I would be disappointed when I saw it. But when I saw it, I simply sat in my sofa and was so captivated by the story, acting, sets and photography, I was stunned. The scene in the church when a priest read the marriage vows to a couple while the two lead characters listened, I began weeping. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen. I'm even moved by just thinking about it while I'm write this commentary. Nothing in sound movies have moved me so, with exception of 'It's a wonderful life(1946)'. Such a simple story told with so many visual beauties is something I haven't seen in the many films today.

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924)

One of the best adventure movies ever

[10/10 · 3 June 1999]

When I saw this wonderfully exciting adventure film, it got me thinking, "Why can't people make films like this anymore?". Partly why the film makers don't make films like this anymore is that they are so occupied in having the best special effects around and don't give a hoot about the characters, story or detail (Jurassic Park, Lost World, Independence Day, Armageddon are only a small part). I would love to go and see a film that have real characters from these make-believe worlds. There are so many movies today that have Americans in a make-believe world, acting and talking like Americans, this makes me sick all over. This movie has real characters we care about in a believable world. This is partly why I love silent films so much. It is the acting and not the dialog that the viewer gets to know the character through.

This film has all the elements that makes up for a good adventure film. Very good story, exciting action, wonderful sets, beautiful photography, chillingly wonderful villains and some of the best special effects I've seen (for the time's standard). I especially love the trick photography to make Siegfried invisible and casting a shadow even though he is. I'm looking forward to watching Kriemhild's Revenge.

If you haven't seen this movie and love adventure movies, see it. It is so exciting and magical that you'll remember it always when you see a bad adventure movie, something that is normal today.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The greatest piece of film before Citizen Kane

[10/10 · 30 April 1999]

I saw it at Cinemateket in Oslo once and I was so captivated by the film that I was stunned for days after I saw it. I saw it with no background music, but when I saw it, I didn't even notice that. The camera work was SO tremendously magnificent, the cutting so exciting and the acting so good, that it passes Sunrise as my favorite silent film, which also made a tremendous impact on me. The extreme close-ups of the faces in the courtroom, the cutting during the torture scene are just two of my personal favorite things about this movie Falconetti's portrait of the french heroine was some of the most wonderful acting in a silent film I've ever seen. It even compares to the great Lillian Gish. I haven't been able to get it on Laserdisc or DVD yet though, but I hope it will be issued.