o-falk Reviews

S.P.U.N.G (2002–2004)

Got Damn You, SVT!...

[23 January 2006]

... How can we go one knowing that this will NEVER be released on DVD?! Well, just barely, to be honest. I discovered SPUNG halfway through the first season and got hooked from there on. The show follows 6 people during school as they party, drink, have sex, and try to figure out why life is so hard to figure out. It deals with real issues and gives a heart and soul to all those thaughts that you yourself had during you're years trying to get on with your life and your choices.

As mentioned before, this show will NEVER be seen on DVD or even VHS or TV (probably) for that matter. Mainly because the series uses such a bizarre amount of music (about 10 songs per episode at least) and the rights to all this would just be too expensive to ever get it released. In fact, the music is also so much of what made SPUNG "SPUNG", it was a real genuine feeling of youth, flowing through every show, but it didn't feel faked like Saved By The Bell (yeah, I know it's an understatement, but I couldn't think of anything else) or Beverly Hills, it was actually genuine. Real people, with real problems, really really depressed, happy, sad, in love, and f***ed up.

The acting was also amazing. Blended with a grainy and unique visual style (influenced perhaps by a dogmatic feel) the series uses a lot of coulor and high contrast imagery which really made it stand out from the rest of SVT's crappy shows.

So yada yada yada, you will probably never get to see this :(

Storm (2005)

Stylistic Visuals vs. Too Many Loose Ends

[6/10 · 23 January 2006]

Don't get me wrong. This is an important film (for Sweden especially as it's so rare to see a Swedish sci-fi that actually lives up to it's title) and the visual style takes influences from a bunch of ground-braking classics; OldBoy, Fight Club, Se7en, The Terminator, 28 Days Later and many more (though these references feel more like homages rather than bad rip-offs and so it just goes to show that the film was made by people who really just like movies in general).

Anyway, on with the show. The film follows DD - a hip guy hanging with all the right people and living the trendy life of a Stockholm-journalist - who suddenly has his path crossed by Lova, who seems more like a superhero than an actual Swedish girl (and yeah, I know what Swedish girls look like in general). She disappears as fast as she arrived and DD goes home to his bachelor pad.

Later on she shows up at his door, giving him an address to visit if things start to go bad. And eventually, they do (of course). When trying to find Lova again he comes across a strange box and is forced to flee the scene of a shoot-out. Now, on the run from the cops, and also from the people originally chasing Lova, he must figure out the secret of the box and manage to open it before it's to late.

This was an interesting plot to say the least and I really enjoyed the work that these directors did in the past. Unfortunetely, the wonderful visual styles used here don't quite make up for the fact that the story ends up with too many loose ends.

It could have been a brilliant film but, in the end, the final answer to what's happened during this hour-and-a-half (or whatever) just leave a whirlwind of new questions stirred up in the backwaters of the credits.

Sorry guys, I really wanted this to work as something more than just eye-candy :(

Alien 3 (1992)

Fincher did great!

[21 July 2003]

I can't believe everyone who keeps saying that Alien 3 brought the saga to a halt (not because of ending). I think that Alien 3 is a lot cooler than the original movie but it still carries that classic fear of a just 1 single creature (which went lost in Camerons 'Aliens', though this movie turned out as the best of all anyway so it doesn't really matter)...

I know the story that says Fincher himself never liked the movie. And I guess it's not as amazing as he's later productions ('The Game', 'Seven', 'Fight Club' etc.) but it still turned out as a very important part of the saga, and it really is a GOOD movie. And this is an early Fincher-flick, we can't judge him based upon his later productions. He didn't have all those movies behind him at the time of Alien 3. So stop thinking "DAVID FINCHER'S Alien 3", instead, try to think of it as "David Fincher's ALIEN 3". It's just another movie. And I think fincher did great. After all, The first movie was epic, the second movie was like the first one kicked up to a speed of 300 lightyears per second, and it added more action to the saga than T2 did for the Terminator serie. Now take another look at Alien 3. Remember the Alien in the ceiling chasing after the prisoners as they atempt to lour it into the furnace. Remember Bishops shredded corpse taken of a local garbageheep. Remember Ripley's shaved head. This is kick-ass movie! And as far as Ripley-fans should be concerned; isn't this the greatest Ripley portrated through out the saga? I mean, Girl power a side... the Ripley clone in episode 4 almost felt silly, but in Alien 3? Ripley could sit down and arm-wrestle the queen herself based purely on that shaved-head-look. And she would take the queen down. Period.

PS. I can't wait to see the Directors Cut version (ooohps, sorry, that should be "extended workprint"-version) that should be included in the ALIEN QUADRILOGY boxset due available sometime around november (?).DS

Vampire's Kiss (1988)

Chasing pigeons

[21 July 2003]

This is in fact quite funny. Nicolas Cage plays the role of a man who get's bitten by a vampire (or atleast HE thinks he gets bitten but I seriously doubt it's a vampire who bites him). And as time goes on he becomes more and more paranoid and starts to play the part of an actual vampire, though he doesn't have any fangs and so he gets some of his own from a small shop selling really weird stuff. His fangs are made from ... like, I don't know, really fine china? But that's not enough. He turns way crazier. Whatching Nicolas Cage running around the street chasing a f*cking pigeon (for dinner) is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Not because it's particularly funny, but it's way to bizarre to be tragic.

Apart from all this, a real highlight in this little flick is the scene in which Nicolas Cage actually eats a real live cocroach. IT'S NOT EVEN A JOKE. HE ACTUALLY EAT'S IT. And this is not just a rumor, it's a fact. That scene alone is almost worth whatching it all. Totally disgusting.