Change Your Image
max.vermeij
Reviews
I racconti di Canterbury (1972)
Candidate for "Worst Italian Movie ever"?
In the Middle Ages, people generally did not stroll about in brightly colored, shintzy clothes. Especially not when they went on a pilgrimage, "to seek the holy blissful martyr". Roads and streets were not paved. People stank. One cannot convey that in a film, but please pay more attention to set decoration? The standard you would like to attain in that respect was set by Terry Gilliam in "Jabberwocky": shabby poor people, dirty faces, muddy streets. Or "The Name of the Rose".
Besides, you can only follow this movie if you have read the Canterbury Tales first. Otherwise, it's incomprehensible. By the way, almost all Italian movies I re-view of late seem incomprehensible. I used to like Italian cinema, but its products do not seem to age well. The dialogues usually seem hollow and pretentious. One notable exception: "Kaos".
Max (2002)
Totally unconvincing (visually)
The story in itself is excellent, but the art direction and set decoration are appallingly bad and spoil the story. Not for a single moment was I convinced to see people moving about in 1918-1919 Germany. Well kept and (during nighttime) lit streets and squares, an inviting shopping promenade, balconies (overlooking the courtyard where Max Rothmann eventually perishes) decorated with electric X-mas lights. Germany in 1918 was very much a country on the brink of civil war, where people died of starvation in their thousands after years of allied naval blockade. Actors and extras simply looked too well fed and dressed. And finally, an art gallery in an abandoned factory building: how very 1980-ish (instead of 1918-ish).
Raising Arizona (1987)
A Coen movie I do not like...
... nearly as much as I like the other Coen movies I've seen (I have not yet seen Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy). Raising Arizona tries way too hard to be funny, sometimes in a Benny-Hill-kind of way, e.g. with Cage running around, dogs chasing him. I don't get it. Still, the movie's got a few genuinely humorous moments.
Considering the fact that almost all comments for this one are positive, I checked Raising Arizona's average rating of 7.6 against the ratings for other Coen movies. I was somewhat relieved to find that this movie has the lowest (average) rating of the Coen movies I've seen up to now.
A 6 out of 10.