re-eino Reviews

Aftermath (IV) (2017)

No hope, everything is lost

[2/10 · 7 April 2017]

Imagine, growing up during the 80s. It seems like everything is possible. Bennett is told to let out some steam, corrupt corporate executives snorting cocainum in a dystopian cyber future with hookers and maybe a schedule for a ninja attack later?

The year is now 2017. Arnold is long done being the governator and is fully re-refueled for relaunch or re-burst or whatever. Arnold is not a clone, he has been re-invented! Today's re-faded Arnold has become boring and soft, releasing flop after another. We can't account this disaster only for his absence in the movie industry. He had already been failing for 10 years before he decided to take a break. Reality unfortunately is that Arnold needs to be the Terminator, Conan, Matrix Commando, Ben Richards, Conan in retirement, God and so on. Arnold can't be the weeping father to prove his actor skills, no that's stupid!

The moment this movie started and the soundtrack kicked in, there was no coming back from that. Nobody means no harm and everyone is so upset and really supportive, but don't know what to say, emotionally drained and even vengeful! Yeah, and we should think about the kids too, how everything affects them dramatically, when your daddy is upset and people around you are angry. This movie also left me emotionally drained and upset, not a pleasant Friday afternoon, when you only want to let out some steam with a good movie.

Nobody in this movie, but Arnold matters and nobody would watch this movie without Arnold. He is the star here and that's how it's supposed to be, but that doesn't mean anybody around him can't be interesting either. This is a terrible family drama cry-fest of a movie and it's hard, trying to figure out what Arnold is trying to do in such a movie and why was this movie even made? Somebody should be finding some proper roles for him ASAP so we don't waste any more what's left of him! Somebody who can, fire his manager and find someone who writes Arnold the roles himself if necessary! Possible future contains Twins 2 with Eddie Murphy and The Legend of Conan, I'll keep my fingers crossed for the latter.

Another Kind (2013)

Another stupid mystery movie

[2/10 · 29 November 2012]

Just had to watch this because I'm hooked on survival-theme movies. Maybe I had passed it if I had noticed it was one of those movies with a "mystery" element. It's hard enough to do a decent survival movie without any extra themes and true enough, this movie might had been at least decent as a strict survival movie.

Everything starts promising enough. Two friends with their girlfriends leave a city for snow hiking in the forests. Soon enough however the mystery element comes to play and the movie fails instantly. There are several occasions where something irrational and not so subtle stuff happens. One of the guys is just constantly trying to convince the others that's not a big deal. Perhaps some hillbillies are playing pranks etc. and he succeeds every time! This is one of the major flaws in the movie and such a typical fail that it's very annoying. Nobody in their right mind would sleep comfortably and wait some new weird stuff to just happen in dark woods without giving it a second thought. Instead they would get back to their car as fast as possible even if it was only some hillbillies having fun at their expense. But no, they have to wait until parasites begin drilling into their skulls before they're convinced it's probably safer to get back home.

So why did we need the mystery element here? Probably the writer / director realized he didn't have any new ideas for a survival movie and thought he could get off the hook by adding the mystery element. Very few movies in the genre have anything new to add, but I still rather watch another unoriginal realistic movie than a stupid one that's not even funny (unlike The Core which is hilarious). If you find some guilty pleasure from survival movies, then there are much better options you might have not seen yet from The Poseidon Adventure to Open Water and 127 Hours and many more in between.

Tummien perhosten koti (2008)

Lack of realism posed as art

[2/10 · 16 May 2009]

Dome Karukoski made himself known in the Finnish cinema with the movie 'Tyttö sinä olet tähti'. This movie is very similar in at least in two aspects: In both movies we can see "teenage" love tension. The girl in this movie, actor Marjut Maristo is actually about 23 years old and the boy is about 18 years old. The other similar thing about these movies is the lack of content and originality.

So how are these movies different? This movie has something which 'Tyttö sinä olet tähti' was lacking and that is pseudo artistic sequences. For example the beginning sequence in the rain with the gramophone was very tasteless and mockery to true art. I think the director must divide all music in two categories, there's pop music and there's Mozart. Even though I hadn't my hopes very high before, after this sequence I was completely prepared for a bad movie. There's of course nothing bad about Mozart, but I despise the way the music was used here in this shot.

After this the movie goes completely wild. We jump forward in time. The boy is having troubles with society and with himself and he is sent to an island with troubled kids. These kids are supposed to be very disturbed because of their past. However there's no guards and no rules whatsoever. We have a family here in the same cabin with these disturbed boys and they are having fun there as if they were on a vacation. Soon after arriving the main character Juhani gets a golden shower from these boys and he's isolated as punishment in a dark hole like in some Van Damme movie, but he won't squeal on the other boys. After he gets out he's now suddenly friends with these rednecks and don't even consider a revenge.

There's a lot's of stupid stuff going around in the movie, most of which are these pseudo artistic sequences where Juhani's past is revealed in small parts. One thing bothering me a lot is that there's no attempt to give a character for Juhani's mother, she's just silent. This is why her motivation (at the end scene of these flashbacks) remains completely curtained and I didn't buy it for a second. It's just one of the sequences where the characters in this movie do unimaginable things just to progress the plot and make it seem more complete. The actions of the character is based on nothing and are added just for "shock" value as many other sequences in the movie.

More of these types of sequences can be found in many places. One of the most funniest parts was a sequence where the brute (the largest of the boys) hurts himself and has to take his shirt off. The wife (in the family) is taking care of him and notices his scars. She gets turned on when she hears about the sexual and physical abuse of which the brutes father is responsible for. After this they end up having sex and this unbelievable "side plot" of passion has an incredibly unbelievable ending as well which culminates in a weird way with the emotions of the main character to make the side plot seem somehow relevant to the main plot.

I'm not going to talk in detail how this movie was made. I didn't notice anything original in the directing or in the storyline. The story is actually just typical Finnish erotic drama with no content and the actors can't shine in this movie no matter how hard they would try. This goes into same series with 'Levottomat' and other such movies. I would feel sorry for the actors if I didn't know that they got money by acting in this movie.

For a decent new Finnish movie it's better to see 'Paha Maa' by Aku Louhimies. It wasn't an attempt to make superb realism, but it's certainly more entertaining and atmospheric compared to this one.

Valhalla (1986)

Typical animation with boring characters and story

[2/10 · 4 January 2009]

I can't understand how one could be praising such a typical animation as this one.

Music and effects are basic stuff for most parts and they don't deserve any kind of special remark. There is absolutely no positively unconventional or surprising element in the score. It might as well have been ripped from Disney or some forgotten television animation series. At the end of the movie the music shifts into a horrible pop rock song musical which made my stomach turn.

Characters are conventional animation characters portrayed without any authentic personality. There is absolutely no respect in "Thor" who is supposed to be a though guy, so it doesn't matter so much that he is also a loser who can't do anything right. His sidekick "Loki" has to act as Thor's brains even though he isn't too bright himself. So it is a good break that this couple gets bunch of kids to help them out in their difficult quest of beating up a group of giants in a game of intelligence. In the meanwhile these kids go look "Odin" playing chess and also a big part of the movie is dedicated for these kids playing in a tree house.

Real family values are taught by only briefly exposing Thor's wife while she takes care of Thor's children and cooks stew (god's wife thus gives a good example to mortal children about the role of women in the house). I'm also worried about sexual values in this movie: there are no beautiful ladies or knights in this fairytale, only kids, muscle men and badly animated troll giants. So if one likes to see the great gods of Valhalla perverted into a bunch of wimps playing around with mortal (and immortal) children this is the movie to see.

I gave this 2/10 because at the end of the movie there is a two second shot of a chicken waving it's rear sphincter (I'm not kidding) at the camera. I considered this to be a relatively original idea of making the audience feel like they have been screwed.

Gauche the Cellist (1982)

Missed opportunity

[5/10 · 29 July 2006]

Takahata begins the story of a cellist having difficulties with his performance within an orchestra. They are training Beethoven for a music competition as the deadline is closing. The conductor seems to have problems pinpointing the exact problem with Goshu's play. First he tells he's lacking behind, then he suggests he's out of tune and finally he explains that he has no sense of expression. I can't but wonder this kind of indecisiveness in supposed to be professional orchestra leader. Goshu trains very hard by himself, but that doesn't help him to get better in sync with other players in the orchestra (somewhat a logical conclusion).

While Goshu is training, the animals start to visit him, asking him to play for them. First one is the cat telling him to play something different for a change. He is immediately hostile toward the animal and decides to torture the cat with a simple tune called 'Indian tiger hunt'. The cat is now in terrible agony and tries to escape the torture. Next one in line is a woodpecker. He is still irritated, but now he agrees to play two notes over again with the bird for a while until he loses his temper again. Goshu (the musician) doesn't seem to understand when the bird is explaining him that two notes always sound a little different when played repeatedly and frightens the bird away. The third animal is a raccoon playing drums with him. It tells Goshu that he is not in sync with drums and then it leaves. Finally he cures a mouse pup by putting it inside the cello and playing some random tune. His reactions towards the animals are now less hostile and he has mastered his technical and expressionistic difficulties by these exercises. In the competition Goshu exceeds all expectations made for him by somehow surpassing all other players of the orchestra also now in sync with them. He's asked to play an encore and not yet convinced of his improved skills decides to play the 'Indian tiger hunt', clearly marked as not so much of a song. He still manages to convince everybody with his improved skills of performance even with this beginner class song.

The film is supposed to tell a story about music, but it doesn't work as whole because Takahata can't decide in what part he should concentrate in. It would be easy to judge that he doesn't know much about music and decides to tell an innocent story about art of teaching instead, just masked to be a story about music. However perhaps the lessons are made so simple and incoherent just that the audience can easily follow the links of the teachings to Goshus multidimensional problems as a cellist. I think this movie would have worked better if instead of a instrument player it would have told a story about composer stuck with some piece he's been working at. It fails to be great movie because lack of depth and consideration in both dimensions of the story. It is also too short to take advantage of all the possibilities which could have been utilized. However it shows some signs of a good movie such as character development. It doesn't contain major holes even tough all the lessons that Goshu receives don't seem to fit perfectly in the greater picture. Finally it is one of the few movies that at least in part, tries to tell a story about music.

It was an interesting experience for me and it shows great promise for future works of Takahata. It's also nice to see how well Takahata's skills have developed after this movie in works such as 'Grave of the fireflies' which succeeds in those aspects this movie fails at.

Stereo (1969)

Unique approach to pseudo science

[5/10 · 4 December 2005]

I can't say that I'm a Cronenberg fan since I haven't seen many of his movies and those that I have seen consists largely of his later works. I also can't say that stereo was the kind of movie I was expecting, since the topic hasn't been the most popular subject in those movies that can be considered to contain any individuality. I wasn't badly disappointed or gladly surprised because this movie was indeed a bit rough. Still the subject and Cronenbergs approach to it feels quite fresh. Filming takes place in an architecturally interesting building complex. The building is filmed from inside and outside, but in any shots no other buildings can be seen. This gives a nice enigmatic touch on the setting.

I found it surprising how this movie tried to combine sexual behavior and pseudo scientific telepathy by using scientific biological and psychological approaches. The film doesn't try in any point to explain how telepathy is actually achieved, but instead feeds the viewer with supposedly scientific data that is related to telepathy (for example. functions on how strength of telepathic linkage is correlated on the distance of two telepathic persons, how emotions affect telepathy etc.). Things told by the narrator are related to the images on the screen. He explains how emotions, such as love, are manipulated in an scientific experiment, as a method on gathering information about telepathy. There is no soundtrack, dialog or SFX, only the narrators voice. The fact that all that is happening on the screen is explained in scientific terms/reasoning, without any scientific justification, might make the "story" a little tough piece to swallow.

Time to time the movie doesn't seem to progress very rapidly: There are some long scenes where expressions are extensively filmed and some of them are almost funny (for example when one subject very slowly raises his hand to his mouth while looking straight forward and one scene where man is eating a chocolate bar, seem to last for an eternity). As the movie is carried forward by the narrator, the scenes where he is silent are completely quiet. I don't consider this helpful while trying to keep audience interested on the subject. Since visual part of this movie can't by itself tell much to audience and is better left on the background to be explained by the narrator. This sure isn't a mainstream movie and it is also a rare piece in it's subject and style. I certainly don't regret watching this, but as a word of warning, it might not be too easy to watch. However this movie wasn't made just to entertain audience, as later works by Cronenberg and despite low entertainment value, it is one of the most interesting movies I have seen from him. If this one feels too heavy to watch, check out 'The Fly' (as you probably already have), though I liked 'Naked Lunch' the best.

Uuno Epsanjassa (1985)

When you have seen one, you have seen them all

[1/10 · 13 August 2005]

Uuno looks like he's been pulled trough a car engine while it's still running. Despite the hideous result, Uuno seems to be a real player when it comes to woman so one essential "subplot" in most of the Uuno movies as in this one also, is Uuno picking up ladies while his wife's nagging at him. Second "subplot" in all the Uuno movies I remember, is his eternal battle with his father-in-law Tuura who ranks high in politics. Uuno gives him hard time and somehow seems to get him constantly into troublesome situations.

Ere Kokkonen relies heavily on Loiri's actor skills and outlook of the character since he himself has no talent as a director or as a writer. The characters are unimaginative and the comedy is really weak. Most of the shots have perhaps been shot only once and then forgotten. Soundtrack consists of pretty weird eighties synth sounds which are perhaps the funniest part in the movies although used in helpful manner to pinpoint the scenes to laugh at (so you wouldn't forget to). For example to highlight some autistic look on Uuno's face or when Tuura finds out that he has to suffer because of something that Uuno did. The whole "plot" is ridiculous and worth while mentioning only briefly: As the title suggests, Uuno goes to Spain with his wife and her parents. Then the subplots start to loop. Uuno gives hard time to Tuura, chases womens etc. Uunos mechanic buddies from Finland are also included in this film so that the audience wouldn't feel alienated from the previous movies at all.

I think there is no one Uuno movie that surpasses the others as being the ultimate failure, all of them are pretty standard ultra low quality and this one is no exception. If you have seen one, you have seen them all. All that changes is the surroundings where the comedy is supposed to happen. Hopefully Uuno is at least for now dead and buried.