Jonas Ferry’s blog

A new bunch of movies seen. Don’t worry if you’re here to read about friform, my comments will be brief.

Helena and I have two types of films we try to watch all of: Hitchcocks and serial killer movies. I forgot to write about Ted Bundy (Matthew Bright, 2002) when we watched it. It’s a creepy movie about one of the more interesting American serial killers, mainly because of his outward appearance of success in life. Bundy was politically active and a good student of psychology and later law, but with an interest in abducting twenty-year old girls with long dark hair parted in the middle. From what I know the movie is accurate in its description of the events, and I recommend it.

Så som i himmelen (English title: As in Heaven (Kay Pollak, 2004) is a Swedish film about a successful orchestra conductor (Michael Nyqvist) who returns to his old home town in the north of Sweden. It’s an ok film, but is unfortunately full of clichéd characters and events.

In Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2004) Clint Eastwood plays an old boxing manager who takes on training a woman boxer. It’s a good film with great performances from Hilary Swank and Eastwood. I liked the fact that the boxing scenes didn’t turn into Rocky-like things with the fake drama of whether she would beat the opponents or not. The boxing wasn’t the focus, the characters and their interactions were.

In the Mood for Love (original title: Fa yeung nin wa) (Kar Wai Wong, 2000) is a Hong Kong love story of two people of are betrayed by their spouses and find each other. Beautiful and mesmerizing, with a great recurring song accompanied by slow-motion scenes of the two main characters. Recommended.

I had to watch Nightbreed (Clive Barker, 1990) because I’ve just read a Swedish Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Kerry Conran, 2004) delivers what one might expect from the movie. A kind of fun pulp adventure of a flying ace fighting an evil nazi and his robot soldiers, but not that memorable.

Scanners (David Cronenberg, 1981) is Cronenberg’s cult classic. The story is centred on a scanner, a psionic capable of projecting and read thoughts as well as hurt people by the power of his mind. He gets drawn into a fight between two competing organisations and has to choose side.

The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003) is the story of a young American man living with a French brother and sister in Paris 1968. The siblings’ relationship is a bit closer than normal, and the three get involved in a love triangle that can’t end well.

The War of the Worlds (Byron Haskin, 1953) is a movie you should see if you’re either a fan of 50s sci-fi movies or want to see both the new and the old version. It’s a movie full of silly and one-dimensional characters, but it’s always fun to see the scientist-as-hero character that’s both intelligent and resourceful.

Don’t watch Godsend (Nick Hamm, 2004), it’s that easy. It’s a movie about a couple who lose a child and get an identical clone with the help of Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro). I wasn’t very surprised to see De Niro in this sucky movie, since he’s made some bad choices in movies lately, but apperantly he was less than thrilled himself. He was supposed to do a couple of brief scenes, but was convinced to shoot some more, only to see his name all over the movie poster. This movie is so clichéd it’s not funny.

Saw (James Wan, 2004) is a horror thriller with a very simple, but effective setup. Two men regain consciousness, with no memories of why they’re there, in a room chained to separate walls. They find a tape player with tapes with their names on, and are briefed of their situation. They also find a saw which is too weak to cut through the chains but not their legs. I liked the movie, and it kept the tension up until the end.

The Door in the Floor (Tod Williams, 2004) is another movie about a couple who have lost children. The writer Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) hires a young assistant for his wife Marion Cole (Kim Basinger) to use to get over the loss. A good film, with strong acting and perfect pacing.