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imdb-02755
Reviews
Break the Game (2023)
Mostly a Twitch VOD compilation with no commentary on anything. What was the goal here?
This documentary was so weirdly edited. It jumped from very energetic, upbeat gamign footage to minutes of dead-silent Twitch VODs, interspersed with "bloop!" text messages appearing on screen. A jarring experience and after 20 minutes, quite tedious to watch.
The documentary also jumped wildly between topics, going from the relationship with D_Gurl to trolls to BOTW speedrunning and none of these aspects really connected.
80% of the documentary is just Twitch VODs edited together, and not in a way that makes Narcissa look sympathetic. There's Narcissa getting 3k views on BOTW launch date while being featured on Twitch, yet she is annoyed that it's not 20k viewers (an absolutely absurd number to aim for). The remaining 20% is new footage when Narcissa and D_Gurl met and seemed to have had a nice day or two out in the sun. I understand that the filmmakers can't travel back in time to take footage of Narcissa, but it would have been nice to see more then just some beauty shots and one drone clip with new footage.
There are no interviews with anyone, no real background info besides some of Narcissa's earliest family photos and home video.
If you already know who Narcissa is, this documentary will give you absolutely nothing new or interesting.
Ultimately this documentary left me confused. It clearly tried to make me feel sympathetic towards Narcissa, but then it also included the shot of Narcissa puking on the mountain. For a commentary on trolling there was not enough trolling in the documentary. For speedrunning it's the same. None of these aspects were really discussed in the movie, hence this could have easily been a 45min YouTube video chronicalling Narcissa's downfall. It really feels like Narcissa herself didn't even care about the movie.
BTW: justinlstanley is the film's DP (for those roughly 11 minutes of footage that ended up in the final cut), to give some context to their 10 star rating of this movie.
Ostfriesen auf der Bank - Der Film (2020)
What happens when you stretch a 90s comedy YouTube format to 82 minutes
I am familiar with 0-budget locally made community movies. But this was sadly not what I would even consider a movie.
I think the idea behind the movie was pretty obvious: "Let's take our YouTube sketches and make a real movie, guys! We could ask on Twitter for people who have cool talents we can include!" -- and then they ended up with a whole lot of random people that all want their 2 minutes of fame, which leads to a movie that is just scene after scene after scene of random, unfunny jokes, random characters and random interactions. In that sense it's similar to the TGWTG movies like To Boldly Flee.
The plot claims to be "We found a bench and must return it to the rightful owner in Cologne" (an origin story to their YouTube channel), yet 90% of the movie the characters seem to be wandering around aimlessly in Ostfriesland and make absolutely no progress.
The scenes have no logical order and could be re-arranged and dropped as you like, withou affecting the narrative. Cut down to the relevant scenes, this would be rouhgly 10 minutes long.
Look, I get it. It's a community coming together to produce a piece of art for themselves and they're sharing it with the world. And that warms my heart, really. I've seen Deichkind, Deichbullen, etc. And so have no aversion to seeing local community "actors". But these other movies were _real_ movies, with a plot and things happening. Here however, all this lovely work unfortunately did not go towards making a movie, but just 30 YouTube sketches that are pasted together.
When the community comes together and this is screened in the local town hall, everyone will have a blast, recognizing each other and local places and stuff. But if you're not in that group, you will most likely get nothing out of this movie.
From a technical standpoint, at least all scenes were in focus and the audio was passable.
Hellfjord (2012)
Bogged down by a terrible script and seemingly nobody taking the production serious.
I really wanted to love this, as a have a strong bias towards Scandinavian media. But man, this mini-series didn't work for me.
The cinematography is incredible boring, to a point where I am not sure anymore that the utterly washed out picture is a stylistic choice or someone forgot to add some contrast back. I had to google screenshots to ensure I didn't accidentally set something weird in my Bluray player. There are a few interesting shots, but 99% of it is soooo flat and boring. So many static talking shots.
The script is even worse. The series spends an entire episode with the main character undercover in prison, and basically nothing of interest happens there. The first 4-5 episodes feel like the plot is on pause and nothing happens. There were so many loose ends that the final episode could not possibly tidy up.
The characters were the worst aspect for me. None of them were consistent, except for Johanne, which I would like to call "Magic Exposition Girl". While our main character is just a bumbling idiot, Johanne is who is doing the actual police work and keeps the thin plot moving at least somewhat forward.
Salmander didn't start out as a simpleton to me, but episodes 2-6 just showed him being mostly an idiot. Only in the last episode he turns into Rambo.
Kobba.... Kobba... where to even begin. A character that flip flops between barely being able to being fed, to being a Pro Marksman. In the next scene he can barely keep awake for 5 minutes, in the next he's a seasoned, cool and relaxed police officer. The make up on him made it also hard to look at him, at times I felt like I was watching Braindead.
Riina, Kobba's.... well, what? Sex slave? Assistant? At first I thought she worked in the police station as an assistent, but then she begins to feed and kiss Kobba... so they are in love? But she hates him. And he hates her. She basically never speaks and has 0 importance to the plot, except for the very last episode where the turns into Resident Evil Woman and mowes down people while dualwielding Uzi's. Suddenly the shy, quiet, (abused?) mail-order bride turns into a vamp. I guess the series needed _someone_ to break up the big endfight between the baddies and the police.
The same goes for pretty much all the characters in this series. None of them, except for Johanne, are consistent or even make sense. Their relation to each other is a mystery to me.
What did I like about this series? Well, the first episode was kind of funny (when Salmander arrived in Hellfjord). But even then, the "everyone smokes here" aspect is never brought up again. Besides the 5 or so main characters, Hellfjord is also devoid of life.
Endlich Weltuntergang (2012)
Terrible
This movie wanted to be a mockumentary, but failed entirely by having invisible cameras constantly filming the mockumentary team. So this is more of a behind the scenes a mockumentary about some weirdo apocalypse people.
Apart from that and because of that, nothing made sense, the improv went on for way too long and the camera work was terrible.
Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes (2021)
We get it Netflix, you love tape recorders and recently deceased serial murderers.
This is just the next in an endless line of same-looking Netflix "documentaries". At this point it has become quite cliché: Put your guests into a dimly lit room, set the camera off at an angle and let them make vague, ominous statements. Intersplice it with footage from the 70's but with added digital grain and shaking. Use the same music as you've used in all other murder documentaries made by RAW. Lots and lots of macro shots of paper, newspapers, typewriters and of course the star of the show: the cassette player! Oh how Netflix loves to show us the tape spinning in a record player.
Netflix really needs to decide if they want to produce a documentary or a mystery movie.
Under ConTROLL (2019)
Absolute Garbage
I bought this movie on DVD because it advertised itself as "the German Troll 2 hommage" and I love Troll 2 (in that trash movie loving kind of way).
But hown damn, "Trolls World" is just unwatchable. Every sentence tries to be a quippy joke or a pun, everything is exaggerated, there are no characters, structure, anything. The only thing this movie has in common with Troll 2 is that a) it has "Troll" in its name and b) there were a few scenes with a troll puppet. This is not a remake, sequel or prequel, it's just CGI garbage filmed at night in the woods.
Don't waste your time, watch the "original" instead.