Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

**** SPOILER WARNING ****
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) is born in the dirt and stench of the fish market in Paris in the year 1738. His mother is working on the fish market and had several stillbirths already. She assumes her baby as dead as the others and immediately returns to her work after giving birth, leaving the baby unattended in the dirt. But Jean-Baptiste lives, and when he starts crying and people notice what has happened, his mother is sentenced to death as a child murderer, and Jean-Baptiste grows up in the orphanage of Madame Gaillard (Sian Thomas). Very soon Jean-Baptiste realizes he is different - he has a perfect sense of smell.
At age eight, Madame Gaillard sells Jean-Baptiste to the tannery of Grimal. Most of the workers there don’t survive the hard work for more than five years, but Jean-Baptiste is a survivor. When Jean-Baptiste makes deliveries for Grimal in the city of Paris, he discovers a whole new world of smells, and he is mesmerized by the scent of a young woman selling fruits. He follows the girl’s scent and sneaks up on her to enjoy her odor. The girl is frightened, Jean-Baptiste tries to silence her and chokes her accidentally. He inhales her aroma but is shocked when it volatilizes.
Then he makes a delivery to ageing, once famous but now nonsignificant perfumer Guiseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) and becomes his apprentice. Jean-Baptiste is eager to learn how to preserve scents, but Baldini’s knowledge can’t satisfy him. For the price of one hundred recipes for great perfumes Baldini issues Jean-Baptiste a journeyman’s certificate so he can go to Grasse, the capital of scents, and learn more about the art of capturing smells.
During his journey he realizes that he doesn’t have a scent of his own and is a nobody for all the other people who do have their own odor. He doesn’t want to be a nobody forever - he wants to be somebody, and decides what he needs is a perfect perfume.
The scent that turns out to be Jean-Baptiste’s passion is the aroma of beautiful young women, and soon after Jean-Baptiste’s arrival in Grasse, dead bodies of naked young women with clipped hair are found. More and more young girls are found dead, and the city grows into a state of panic and is desperate to catch the demonic serial killer.

Many directors have tried before to make a film based on the book Patrick Sueskind, amongst them Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton and Ridley Scott, but all of them gave up convinced it was impossible. And what can be harder to show in movie theatres than a story mainly about smells, with a leading man who is a creepy serial killer who hardly talks and experiences the world through scents?
Director Tom Tykwer and producer Bernd Eichinger accepted the challenge and adapted the book to a screenplay together with Andrew Birkin, and they did the impossible - they captured the world of scents and brought it to the big screen. And it works.
Credit goes not only to Tom Tykwer and the actors Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman and Rachel Hurd-Wood, but also to the musical score (by Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer) and to cinematographer Frank Griebe who make the invisible world of scents come to life on the screen.
If you are ready for the experience of an unusual story about a serial killer who just wants what everybody wants - to be loved - then don’t miss this newest addition to the line of “impossible” film versions of bestselling novels.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When you watch the movie Perfume you’ll want to be smelling your best, especially if your boyfriend or girlfriend is with you. The website FragranceX.com has a huge amount of discount perfumes to choose from including perfume brands such as Calvin Klein, Burberrys, and Bulgan perfumes. FragranceX also has an equally huge amount of colognes to choose from as well.

Rookie racing car Lightning McQueen is a winner. His goal is success, he is convinced he is the best, and he doesn’t need help from anybody. He even fires his whole team before the most important race in his career. But on his way to California to the race he gets lost, crashes into the sleepy town of Radiator Springs, gets arrested and sentenced to repair the damage.
The residents of Radiator Springs are annoyed by Lightning’s attitude at first, but soon he befriends rusty tow-truck Mater, and there is this lovely Porsche Sally ….

Can Pixar do anything wrong? Certainly, and sooner or later, they will. But not yet. Each of their movies so far was a success, some became instant classics.
Cars is technically perfect - every car has it’s distinct personality, the landscapes are striking, difficult to animate objects and effects like water and reflections seem to pose no technical problems for Pixar, and most important: the animated characters have a heart and soul, even minor supporting characters (my favorite: Guido, the assistant of Luigi) are “alive”.
The dramatic racing sequences make Cars the best sports movie since Cool Runnings, only the story of Lightning’s journey to become a better car is not as original as Pixar’s best (Toy Story, Monsters Inc). It’s quite obvious right away how it will all develop and end, especially when you have seen Doc Hollywood with Michael J. Fox (self-obsessed doctor crashes into a sleepy town, makes friends there, and there is this lovely ambulance driver, Lou …)
The voice talent in the Original English version includes Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt and Larry The Cable Guy.
In the dubbed Austrian version, Formula One racing legend Niki Lauda lends his voice to the retiring champion (unfortunately, with zero theatrical talent), and real-life TV-commentator Heinz Prueller, the voice of Formula One for generations of Austrians, is the voice for the film’s racing commentator (no need for him to act!).

Not for the kids only!

Sally: Cars didn’t drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.

Sonny Crocket (Colin Farrell with mullet) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) go undercover to nail a drug dealer and murderer. They introduce themselves as specialists for transporting hot cargo, Sonny shags the drugloard’s broad (Li Gong) and helps her to escape both her former associates and the law when it all ends in a final shootout.

A lot of talking shall probably trick the audience into thinking there is a sophisticated plot somewhere beneath the talking and the glittering neon-lights. And the wobbly camerawork (this is already getting old) shall convey an air of authencity. What the audience is left with are “cool” guys driving cool cars, boats and planes and wielding cool guns, preferrably at night with some neon-lights illuminating the scene - and lots of talking that doesn’t make much sense.
There is no chemistry at all between the lead actors, Colin Farrell (and his mullet) and Jamie Foxx hardly talking to each other, both of their romances only there to show some nudity and not much else.

A movie for “cool” people only.

Scenes from Miami Vice:

Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to Earth after a five-year journey to his homeworld Krypton, but he found nothing there. The world has moved on and learned to live without Superman, and so has Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), who won the Pulitzer price for her “Why the world doesn’t need Superman” editorial. And she lives with another man (James Marsden) and has a five year old kid. There seems to be no space in her life for Superman anymore - and much less for Clark Kent, who returns to the Daily Planet. “What relationship?” Lois aks when Clark wants to “talk about our relationship” with her.
But there is still work to do for a superhero - like saving a malfunctioning shuttle and the Boeing 777 that carries the shuttle and happens to have Lois Lane on board, or fighting gangsters wielding a huge gatling gun. And then there is the trifle of Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) wanting to create a new continent with technology stolen from Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude and flooding America and killing billions in the process …

For years various Superman-projects have haunted Hollywood, every director from Tim Burton via Kevin Smith to Wolfgang Petersen was attached to one, and Nicolas Cage wanted to don the cape. But it needed Bryan Singer to actually get the green light for a return of Superman to the big screen.
The problem with Superman is and has been for a long time that he is perfect. And not only perfect, but also bulletproof, super-fast, and outright invincible. And a perfect man - as every woman you ask for the truth will tell you - is a boring man. And an invincible superhero is a boring superhero, except when you want to watch a man in blue tights beat the crap out of villains for two hours.

What Bryan Singer did is to recreate Superman for a new generation. Superman has to struggle for his place in the world (again), and despite his superhuman powers, he has emotional and relationship problems just like a human being. And while it’s easy to win back the love of the public, it’s not so easy to win back Lois Lane who he left back without saying goodbye when he went on his journey to Krypton.
Not everything is new in Metropolis - Superman has changed, and so has his costume, Lois Lane is now a mother in a relationship, the special effects are better and state of the art, but Brendan Routh looks very much like Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie, and the style is reminiscent of Superman I and II, and so is part of the score.

If you are an action aficionado - don’t be worried because of all this talk about relationships and emotions - there is enough bang for the buck, most notably when Superman saves a burning plane spiralling towards the ground, when he faces the gangster with the gatling gun, and when he does what Superman does - rescueing the people of Metropolis from disaster. And embedding the action into drama and romance makes it all the more powerful - there is nothing worse than special effects just for the sake of special effects.
While it might be a mistake to show the most engaging action scenes at the beginning of a 154-minute movie - what a return to Earth and to the movies for Superman it is!

The acting is fine for an action/comic-film - Brendan Routh looks the part (though sometimes he looks a bit like his own CGI-character), Kevin Spacey is excellent as über-baddie Lex Luthor, Kate Bosworth is OK (but actually a bit too young for the part), sprog Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu) is not annoying and/or ruining the film (and that’s as much of a praise as kids in movies can get from me), and the actors keep the film interesting when there is no super-action going on.

Watch it and You will believe a man can fly!

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is back. This time, he has to find the key to a chest that contains the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the captain of the Flying Dutchman - or lose his soul to Jones. Also back are Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) - just before they get married, they are arrested for helping the pirate Jack Sparrow escape (see PIRATES OF THE THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL). Turner and Swann are given a choice: the gallows - or find and retrieve Captain Jack Sparrow’s magic compass for the East India Trading Company so they can find the key, the chest and the heart to gain control over Davy Jones, the Flying Dutchman and the Seas.

THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL came out of nowhere, it was big, loud, colorful and surprising - a pirate film in a time where pirate films were dead, Johnny Depp in a Disney movie version of a theme park ride, a pirate-horror-fantasy crossover with undead pirates. Is DEAD MAN’S CHEST a sequel, and does it suffer the curse of the sequel that it can never be better than the original? Or is it not a sequel, but part of a trilogy - like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - and can it break the spell? Part Three, after all, was filmed back to back with DEAD MAN’S CHEST already.

Randy: Oh please! By definition alone, sequels are inferior films!
Mickey: How about Empire Strikes Back. Improved graphics. Better storyline.
Randy: Not a sequel, part of a trilogy, completely planned.

We do have the better graphics - Davy Jones’ crew of undead sailors are the improved version of the shoddy skeleton pirates of part one, and the huge Kraken is as good as it gets. But let’s face it - the shoddy skeletons did have more charme than the technically superior ugly sailors of Davy Jones. Better storyline? Negative. The “story” is just an excuse for one action-sequence after another action-sequence after another one. But while there are some great and entertaining action scenes, they do get redundant after a while, and the movie is 150 minutes long. And whenever we are stuck with Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley or anybody else who is not Johnny Depp, time seems to pass slower and slower.

Note to producer Jerry Bruckheimer: Putting one CGI-enhanced action sequence after the other doesn’t necessarily make a good film. The audience wants, needs and deserves characters worth caring for so they care about the outcome of a dangerous situation - or a movie!
What’s the first part’s image that lingers in the memories of the audience? Captain Jack Sparrow, proudly landing his sinking ship in the port - not any action scene.
And the best remembered and mostly quoted scene in DEAD MAN’S CHEST will be “Hide the rum“!
Or, just maybe, it will be the scene where Captain Sparrow bravely goes into the darkness after kissing the girl (just like Han Solo in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) - but mainly because this scene instills the fear that there will be less of Captain Sparrow in part three.

DEAD MAN’S CHEST is big, loud, and colorful - a Disney version of a theme park ride with Johnny Depp in it, a pirate-horror-fantasy-crossover - but it’s not a surprise, and it doesn’t offer any surprises. It’s the same with more CGI and more money, but less charme, and definitly too long, just saved by Johnny Depp’s over the top performance.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Have you ever thought about purchasing a beach house in the Caribbean?
The beautiful vacation villas in the Caribbean have great weather and crystal clear water on sandy beaches. If you don’t want to own the entire beach house you should look into a Caribbean vacation rental. With a vacation villa rental you get a great vacation in a house without the hassles of doing yard work or maintenance on the house.