Story:
The rather clumsy panda Po, who really loves food and works at his dad’s noodle restaurant, gets mixed up in epic kung-fu stuff, and in the end has to save the valley as the Dragonwarrior from the evil Tail Lung.

Style:
Incredibly detailed and cute animations, awesome fighting scenes, and extremely lovely characters like the old and wise kung-fu tortoise master Oogway, the Furious Five, and the evil Tai Lung.
Full of jokes and very funny scenes (for children and adults), but still with the flavour of chinese kung-fu movies, philosophy and poetry. The music is by Hans Zimmer, and the characters are spoken by Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan and others.

Rating:
1

Quotes:

“Oh Master Panda, how can we ever repay you?”
— “There is no charge for awesomeness – or attractiveness.”

Kung-Fu Master Oogway: “Yesterday was history – tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. That is why it is called present.”

Story:
Milo Tindle (Jude Law) is an Actor who visits the extremely rich and famous author (speciality: crime-books) Andrew Wyke (Michael Caine) in his house in order to ask him to divorce his wife Maggie who is in love with Tindle now.
And that’s all I can tell you at this point, really.

Style:
The movie solely takes place in Wyke’s house, which is furnished in a very extravagant and unusual way, and there are no actors except for Law and Caine. From the very beginning, the movie is pure art – every word that is spoken, every gesture the actors make, every detail of the house the movie plays in, every tiny bit of music or sound … and right from the start, the viewer has to be extremely vigilant in order to understand the relation between Tindle and Wyke, and the changes in that relation; pay attention, be on guard, it’s not the proper movie when you’re tired and just want to “watch” something.
Incredibly well acting, an awesome composition, a great movie – very much to recommend.

Rating:
1- (I didn’t like the last 5 minutes)

The first two episodes of the fourth (and final) season of Battlestar Galactica (a remake of the original Battlestar Galactica 1978 TV series) aired within the last 2 weeks, and although I enjoyed the first three seasons a lot (see my German review from the 16th of May 2005), I didn’t really take very much delight in the latest episodes.

Basti linked to a guardian comment on his blog three days ago, and I’ve yet to see a funnier review, it’s incredibly well written and simply freaking hilarious; I’m pretty sure it’s worth reading even if you have no clue about BSG.

Although the series “Firefly” is better, the movie “Serenity” (which was made in order to earn enough money to keep the series going) is simply great. And in case you haven’t seen the movie or the series yet, I put some work into convincing you …

—

A little spaceship, entering the atmosphere of a planet. Suddenly, something explodes, a little part falls off the ship.

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the ship; turbulences, chaos, alarm sounds, all characters more or less scream the whole scene.

Wash [flying the ship]: “What was that? Did you see that?”

Captain: “Was that the primary buffer panel?”

Wash: “It did seem to resemble…”

Captain: “Did the primary buffer panel just fall off my gorramn ship for no apparent reason?”

Wash: “Looks like.”

Captain: “I thought Kaylee checked the entry couplings. I’ve a clear memory of it.”

Wash: “If she doesn’t get us extra flow from the engine room to offset the burn-through this landing is gonna get pretty interesting.”

Captain: “Define ‘interesting’.”

Wash: “Oh, God, we’re all gonna die?”

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(Einleitend möchte ich kurz betonen, dass sich diese Rezension mitnichten an Heavy Metal Fans oder erfahrene Festival Besucher richtet, obschon sie auch für diesen Personenkreis von großem Interesse sein könnte, sondern gerade an diejenigen von euch, die von Heavy Metal Kultur, Festivals und Landwirtschaft (sic!) nicht so besonders viel Ahnung haben).

Inhalt
Der Film der koreanischen Autorin Cho Sung-hyung ist zuerst einmal Film Dokumentarfilm über echte Menschen, die echter garnicht sein könnten. Menschen aus dem Alltag des schleswig-holsteinischen Dorfes Wacken gegriffen, Menschen mit Charakter, Neigungen, Schrullen, Fantasien, Geschichten – Menschen eben, die ihr Leben führen. Abseits des weltweit größten Heavy Metal Festivals, dass jährlich in dem kleinen Dorf stattfindet, in der Vorbereitung darauf, während und nach dem Festival.
Dazu wird ein sehr lustiger und rein dokumentarischer Einblick in die Heavy-Metal Kultur gegeben, und wer Lust hat, endlich einmal Vorurteile abzubauen, sollte sich wirklich Zeit für die 90 Minuten nehmen. Ich werde meinen Eltern den Film mit Sicherheit zeigen.

Stil
Zum einen schafft es Cho Sung-hyung, absolut authentische Einblicke in das Leben von Menschen zu geben, ohne sich selbst in die Abbilder dieser Menschen einzubringen. Sie skizziert auf eine herzliche und nahe, aber doch distanziert und klare Art und Weise die Protagonisten. Zum anderen ist der Film einfach “ganz große Kunst” – Kameraübergänge, Wildnisaufnahmen, musikalische Einspielungen und vieles mehr haben mir wahnsinnig gut gefallen.
Zurecht hat der Film die folgenden Preise gewonnen: Schleswig-Holstein Filmpreis 2006, Hessischer Filmpreis 2006, Gilde Filmpreis 2007 und den Max Ophüls Preis 2007, der zum ersten mal überhaupt an einen Dokumentarfilm ging. Die Jury lobte den Film als humorvoll und vielschichtig, als „unterhaltsamen Dokumentarfilm, der ein faszinierendes Bild deutscher Identität“ liefert.

Bewertung
1

Zitat
“Mach’ mir die Schere Baby, denn du hast ‘nen ziemlich guten Charakter…”

Inhalt:
England, Zukunft, Dystopie: nachdem die vereinigten Staaten von Amerika als Weltmacht kollabiert sind und in der Welt das Chaos ausgebrochen ist, herrscht in England ein Regime, dass die Einwohner durch Repressalien und Gewalt vor sich selbst und der Welt zu schützen vorgibt. Ausgangssperre nach 10 Uhr abends, gefälschte Medien, ein sauberes London … aber für welchen Preis ! Der High Chancellor und gleichzeitig Führer der einzigen Partei, die übrig geblieben ist, regiert mit unbarmherziger Strenge. Soldaten, Fahnen, Wagner – klare Paralleleln zu Adolf Hitler.
In dieser Welt trifft Evey (Natalie Portman), ein ängstliche junge Frau, deren Eltern durch das Regime getötet wurden, auf “V”. Dieser wurde durch Experimente der Regierung verunstaltet und denkt seither nur noch an Rache (Vendetta) …
Am 05.11 (dem Tag, an dem Guy Fawkes 1605 versuchte, das englische Parlament in die Luft zu sprengen) sprengt er den “Old Bailey” in London, dringt gewaltsam in das Sendezentrum ein und übermittelt ganz England eine demokratische, freiheitsliebende, usurpierende Nachricht: Wer auch denkt, dass etwas mit der Welt falsch läuft, wer seiner Meinung ist, wer sich eingeschränkt und unterdrückt fühlt, der soll in einem Jahr, am 05.11, vor dem Parlamant stehen. Gemeinsam wird das Regime gestürzt werden …

Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof. (V)

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Story:
Grace, a good looking and from the depth of the heart good woman, about 25 years in age, flees from her past to the small and very rural town Dogville in the US. We do not know the time, but according to the way people live it must be rather early in the 20th century.
There are about 20 inhabitants living in Dogville, everybody with a different character, a different past, a different story – poor people who working very hard.
Grace asks if she can stay in town in order to find shelter from her past – and the town accepts her for two weeks, because a young writer, who instantly takes a liking to her, speaks for her. The two weeks pass quickly, are expanded to a longer time when Grace starts working for every person of the town for half an hour a day, without payment. And then an hour.
And then things turn. People show their true nature, show who they are deep inside. Everybody, even the young writer who is in love with Grace.
Even Grace.

Style:
The movie is filmed on a kind of theater stage which never changes. Houses, streets and everything else is painted on the ground with white chalk, thus in every instance of the movie you can see all townsfolk. This provides a very shocking method of filming: a family eating together in the one house, two other people laughing in another, children playing outside on the street- and a woman getting raped in a garage 5 metres away from that …
The movie shows, how people really are: Kind, gentle, humane, caring.
Really.

Rating: 2+

(thx to Anna!)

Story:
Two sisters (seem to) meet again in a house somewhere in South Korea. One of them was in a psychiatry recently, and both of them seem to be somehow mentally disturbed, afraid. The house is inhabitated by the young stepmother, and an older man called “the uncle”.
Something’s odd, something’s wrong in the house. Weird things start to happen … and it gets worse and worse.

Style:
I would call it a very frightening and shocking horror movie, but without many shocking scenes. It is the typical “Asian” horror movie, with a very interesting, but confusing story (especially for us Europeans … it is difficult to tell the difference between the two sisters, and even between the mother and them).
The ending is very surprising and well made, the whole story is interesting because of its complexity, and the (only 6) actors do a very good job. The setting is extremely interesting, and the way the producer plays with camera and surrounding reminds somehow of Q. Terentino!
Iggy will love the movie, the majority of you will at least like it very much – although, in between, hiding behind a big pillow, scared to death, you will ask yourself: Why do I always have to watch those kinds of movies?

Rating: 2+

(I did not read the book, I had no expectations, and I rate this movie as a movie made by Steven Spielberg in 2005)

Content:
Aliens attack the earth. You don’t exactly know why, but they do. You find out that this attack was planned long, long time ago. Apparently before the human cities were raised. Because the enemies are burried beneath the ground. Hm.
Yes, they come out, huge machines, and start killing. Exterminating, every single human. With some ridiculous laser-electricity weapon. They search every house, with flashlight-arms.
I am not sure why they do not use infra-red (after hundreds of years of planning this attack, with awsome technology, they might have found out that you actually do not need to look into every single house auf 6 billion people… whatever). They also could use more powerful weapons, so that they do not have to shoot 6 billion people. Ask Steven Spielberg.
Err, and from one second to the other, everything stops (mankind was not able to attack those tripod-machines, because they have a shield. So “we” have no chance at all). Aliens die. Happy End. Why? Some guy speaking from the off tells us at the end: Because the human body is immune to all the bacteria in the earth enviroment. Aliens are not.
OMG …

Style:
I think there is no single scene without Tom Cruise, and at a maximum 5 minutes without Dakota Fanning. Both do really amazing jobs, but … err … there are about 5 scenes, and two of them are “we hide in the basement” scenes. The aliens come, they hide. The (stupid, stupid, stupid) aliens search, they hide. Someone makes a noise, the aliens wonder what this was. They retreat. But, imagine, someone else makes another noise.
And so on and so on.
So, there is apparently no story, and there are so few nice effects. I thought I would see fighting, and yes, it is funny to see those machines destroying the US. But it is not an effect movie.
Best scene: “Dad, what is that?” – “I don’t know … they come from … outside.” – “What do you mean – Europe??”

Rating: 4 (don’t go… if you have to see it, rent it from the video store in 3 months).