VeraWade Reviews

Informe general sobre unas cuestiones de interés para una proyección pública (1977)

Documenting the making of Spanish liberal democracy

[8/10 · 20 March 2023]

Portabella's documentary about Spain's transition from fascism under Franco to liberal democracy remains a work that is interesting and appealing from multiple perspectives. Exploring subjects like human rights, democracy, and power dynamics, it shows us not only the actions and reactions around this transition, but it also makes abundantly clear just how repressed Spanish society was before it.

The style of "Informe general" is undeniably experimental: scenes showing the horrors committed by Franco's regime are contrasted with discussions on, for example, the ideal way for unions to wield political power. We hear reflections on the consequences of the Spanish Civil War (such as exile) and the massive impact that these had on the people who lived through it. Scenes like these are intercut with stunning images of Spain, including a very intense sequence in the ruins of the old town of Belchite.

It remains a work of immense historical significance. While some of the conversations in the documentary shown can be quite esoteric, they offer a vital insight into the myriad of ways in which Spanish society was affected by the fundamental changes the country was going through, and how it dealt with the trauma it had sustained before the transition.

The Northman (2022)

One of the best films in recent memory

[9/10 · 19 April 2022]

Based on the legend of Amleth, with "The Northman" Robert Eggers once again delivers a stunning film. The film follows Amleth, and in an early scene we witness the events that will determine the rest of his life. This is a tale of revenge, and Eggers makes sure we feel this throughout almost the entirety of the runtime.

We are shown in horrifying detail the brutality of life in the Viking Age. However brutal, these scenes are crucial in giving us even the slightest insight into what our protagonist has to have been through. As people familiar with the legend will have suspected, the story leads to an extremely intense climax, set in what is referred to as 'The Gates of Hell'. The final moments absolutely left me speechless throughout the credits.

The cinematography is fantastic, featuring a lot of shots that are technically extremely innovative and which look great. The astoundingly beautiful and impressive locations where the film was shot add to this to make "The Northman" one of the most visually memorable movies in recent memory.

The cast also delivers great performances; Skarsgård, Taylor-Joy, Hawke and Kidman are all on top of their game here. We also get to see some very memorable appearances by Björk and the one and only Willem Dafoe. Bang makes for an interesting and intimidating antagonist.

"The Northman" will certainly rank among the best films in years. It will stick in your mind, and that's definitely a good thing.

One Second (2020)

Zhang's Ode to Cinema - A striking, beautiful tribute

[9/10 · 8 April 2022]

Being big fans of Zhang Yimou's work, we had long anticipated this movie. We finally saw it in the cinema, and we absolutely loved it.

Like all of Zhang Yimou's masterpieces, One Second is full of breathtaking visuals, and it impresses from the first shot on. The story of the movie plays out in a village surrounded by the Gobi Desert, and Zhang misses none of the opportunities this setting offers for astounding visuals. Set mostly during the Cultural Revolution, some elements of the film evoke Zhang's classic "To Live".

The story mainly centers around an escaped convict and a young girl he encounters, who tries to steal a film reel. We learn about the local cinema and the anticipation in which the villagers wait for new films to arrive, and we get to know the projectionist, who is called 'Mr. Movie'. After the negatives of one certain film reel are accidentally damaged, Mr. Movie decides everyone will have to work together to try to restore them. The scenes showing the cleaning of the film's negatives are lovely and very satisfying, and show as much as anything how much of an ode to cinema this film is. As stated, the convict and the young girl are the main characters and emotional core of the film. They have some comedic scenes together, especially earlier in the film, but eventually the story of these characters is touching and heartwarming.

Absolutely a recommended watch, not only for fans of Zhang Yimou, but for film fans in general.

Pegasus Vs. Chimera (2012 TV Movie)

Fast-forwarding footage of a horse doesn't make it look like a Pegasus.

[2/10 · 7 May 2016]

Unfortunately, the good people at Syfy seem to have thought it does.

While "Pegasus Vs. Chimera" is not the absolute worst of the Syfy library, it still fares extremely bad on pretty much all areas. The writing is bad and the acting is either over the top or emotionless (mostly the latter), so be prepared for a lot of cringe-worthy lines. The story is nothing special; there's a couple of bad guys who basically want to conquer the world. It's up to a blacksmith and a princess to stop them, and eventually there are a Chimera and a Pegasus fighting on both respective sides.

At a lot of points a badly executed shaky cam technique is used. On top of that there are numerous, and may I add pointless, establishing shots that might give you motion sickness. Also, be prepared for a lot, and I mean a lot of unnecessary and abrupt cuts. Some of the scenery looks okay, however the bad guys do seem to like to visit the same beach a couple of times, which is also the same beach where the father of the hero was murdered years before. What a coincidence, huh?

As might be expected of a Syfy movie, it contains a lot of bad CGI and special effects. The Chimera isn't well animated itself, but any scene in which someone fights him looks simply horrendous - that is as far as you can even see any of it, since there are so many cuts, even during the most important scenes. The way they tried to make an ordinary horse look like a Pegasus is possibly the worst aspect of this movie. As the title of this review says, footage of the horse is fast-forwarded to make it look like it has "extraordinary powers".

One thing I did like about this movie, is that in one scene near the end of the movie, everyone is involved in a battle, while the horse quietly stands behind them, grazing. Hilarious.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Disappointing effort to relaunch good series

[3/10 · 27 July 2014]

Tim Burton has made quite a lot of good movies, but none of them would ever give you the idea he would be the director best suited to direct a "Planet of the Apes"-remake. His style of filmmaking pretty much couldn't be further from what was needed here.

The film abandons just about every detail from Pierre Boulle's original book. At the start of the movie, Wahlberg's character, Davidson, is working on a space station, and he is involved with experiments with primates. While the back-story behind this seems interesting, you don't get to know much about it because not long into the movie, one of the chimpanzee's from the station disappears with his spacecraft, Davidson follows and ends up on the eponymous planet. Unlike in the original movie, here all humans have the ability to speak and are completely civilized. Since the apes are in that sense not dominant over the humans, that removes a lot of the suspense present in the original movie. The humans still are slaves though, but Davidson escapes with a female slave and convinces a female ape to sort of join their cause. Two apes, military commanders, start chasing after them and we get to see some uninteresting chase scenes. The Ape City also looks badly compared to the one from the original. Later, scenes take place at Davidson's old space station, which crash landed at the planet hundreds of years before he did. The apes apparently created some kind of temple there. Eventually, there is a battle between the humans and the hostile apes.

Now, I've heard people say they were interested in seeing this movie because of a cameo by Charlton Heston, but his appearance is so short and since he is unrecognizable I would hardly say it would be worth sitting through this movie just for that.

This movie is also infamous for the horrible ending, which deserves a special mention of its own. They must have worked really hard to make the last scene especially as bad as possible, in the vain hope they would get to make a sequel to tie up the infinite number of loose ends they created in this.

Fortunately, the series got a proper reboot with "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" in 2011. Do yourself a favor and watch that one instead of this.

Jet Stream (2013 TV Movie)

Incompetence at 500MPH

[2/10 · 1 June 2014]

It's movies like Jet Stream that make you wonder how Syfy manages to spend hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars on each of their movies, and still get phenomenally bad results.

Jet Stream suffers from very bad writing, leading to cringe-worthy dialog in a lot of the film. For some reason there's quite a lot of painfully bad jokes too, and it seems they couldn't have been times worse. Add on to that the wooden acting by an extensive part of the cast.

The CGI is just not convincing at all, everything looks very poorly and amateurishly done. The sequences that are meant to thrill the audience just look ridiculous, laughably bad at times. I also counted a couple of completely unnecessary close-ups.

This is one of the many movies in which Syfy tried to disguise Eastern Europe like the USA, and here they did pretty much the worst job of all their movies I've seen so far. Not to mention that there are countless shots in this, which Syfy has recycled and used for multiple movies. Really, the only positive thing there is to say is that this movie may make you laugh at how bad it is.

Invasion Roswell (2013 TV Movie)

Cheap rip off story-wise, uninteresting otherwise

[2/10 · 25 April 2014]

The concept for this alien invasion movie didn't seem bad to me at all, and knowing its budget and the fact that it is a TV-movie from the Syfy channel, I didn't expect to be complaining about the cheap looks and feel of this movie. Now, I haven't seen that much of their stuff, but I think I can safely say most of the effects in this movie look terrible, and story-wise there are a lot of, to put it friendly, "connections" with famous alien invasion movie, "Independence Day".

For example, there is a guy who used to be a pilot and who is now a drunk, who tells stories all the time about being assaulted by aliens. Remember him? Then there is the way the alien spaceships hover above large cities or other locations. The spaceships themselves, besides looking terribly fake, look stolen from "Independence Day". Flying into the aliens' central ship to destroy them also was too much of a resemblance.

The world seems very empty in this movie and a lot of the times when there are people around, they certainly don't act like aliens are coming.

Now, spoiler alert, but the aliens also do inexplicable stuff I just have to mention. Why would the aliens, besides going to big cities in the world, go to the protagonist's house, and then blow it up? And how would no one in the world notice? Yes, the guy had this little item they wanted, but still...the whole scene was completely ridiculous.

The cast has little to work with and although not completely bad, hence doesn't deliver any really interesting stuff. A very bland science fiction movie.