Jonas Ferry’s blog

The Science of Sleep (original title: Science des rêves, La) (Michel Gondry, 2006). Stéphane, who has a hard time separating reality from fiction, gets a new job and tries to find a girlfriend. Like Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this is a film that plays with your mind as you share the main character’s story. A nice weird little film with Gael García Bernal from Amores Perros and Charlotte Gainsbourg from Lemming. [8/10]

Twelve Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995). A man sent back in time to investigate the destruction of mankind becomes part of destroying it. I’ve watched this wonderful film before, and really enjoyed re-watching it. It’s got time travel, Bruce Willis/Brad Pitt and is based on La Jetée. [10/10]

“WE DID IT” graffiti in Twelve Monkeys (1995).

Monster House (Gil Kenan, 2006). With a haunted house on their street, a couple of kids decide to uncover its secrets. A well-produced animated film; unfortunately, but not surprisingly, stronger in its special effects than in the story. [7/10]

Angry old man in Monster House (2006).

Saw II (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005). A psychotic killer makes people perform tests that kill them if they fail. The first Saw was fresh and with twist that worked, but this film feels more forced. [6/10]

Saw III (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006). More tests, this time by the psychotic killer’s apprentice. While the first film was OK, and the second passable, the third film is really, really bad. If you didn’t already know the bad news, you’d hope this would be the last installment of the series. [3/10]

Lady in the Water (M. Night Shyamalan, 2006). Shyamalan plays a visionary writer with an important message to mankind. There’s also a water woman that needs help to return to her fictional world, but her story doesn’t overshadow the obviously more important Shyamalan story. This is a self-indulgent, self-absorbed and self-centered film written, directed and acted by Shyamalan. [4/10]

All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950). The fan of a famous actress starts to take over her life. I love Mankiewicz’s scriptwriting, both the characters and the story are interesting. [9/10]

A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951). A woman moves to her sister to recuperate, but is troubled by her sister’s husband. I like Marlon Brando, and he carries the picture together with Vivien Leigh. [7/10]

Viskningar och rop (English title: Cries and Whispers) (Ingmar Bergman, 1972). Three women watch over a fourth dying woman in a dreamlike 19th century mansion. While this isn’t my favorite Bergman film, excellent acting and harrowing scenes at the death bed still make this worth watching. [7/10]

The Scent of Green Papaya (original title: Mùi du du xanh - L’odeur de la papaye verte) (Anh Hung Tran, 1993). A young Vietnamese woman works for, and falls in love with, a pianist. Beautifully shot, simply and effectively told. [8/10]

Taxidermia (György Pálfi, 2006). Three generations of Hungarian men are all intimately involved in bodily functions in their own ways. A grotesque and disturbing film that portrays disgusting events in visually beautiful ways. [8/10]

Travellers and Magicians (Khyentse Norbu, 2003). A young man is tired of his small village in Bhutan and decides to go to New York. On the way he gets to know some fellow travellers. This is the first film produced in Bhutan, and a nice little story of strangers and casual friends. [9/10]

Possessed (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). A woman with no memory reveals to her psychiatrist that she may have killed someone. The story is presented in flashbacks and gives an interesting portrait of a disturbed woman. [8/10]

Save the Green Planet (original title: Jigureul jikyeora!) (Joon-Hwan Jang, 2003). A young man convinced that aliens have infiltrated human society kidnaps a businessman and tortures him to reveal the aliens’ plans. For a long time you don’t know if the young man is correct or merely insane in this strange mix of horror, thriller, splatter, science fiction and comedy. [7/10]

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997). A local millionaire in Savannah, Georgia, is arrested for killing his young male lover. Kevin Spacey plays the millionaire and is good as usual. The story is good, but predictable. [7/10]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956). People are replaced by alien copies grown from vegetable pods. Surprisingly good, with the genuine eerie paranoid atmosphere of certain nightmares. [8/10]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951). An alien lands and tries to stop the violence and wars of Earth. The film is a brilliant plea for pacifism, and one of the few non-corny 1950s science-fiction films. It was fun to learn where Army of Darkness (Sam Raimi, 1992) got the famous phrase “Klaatu barada nikto”. [9/10]

The robot Gort, able to destroy tanks with his deadly rays, in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

Hearts in Atlantis (Scott Hicks, 2001). A young boy is befriended by an old man, who says he has secret powers and is chased by government agents. The original story is by Stephen King, and for some reason a lot of his works don’t translate well to cinema. This film is boring and predictable. [6/10]

The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks, 1951). A spaceship crash lands in the Arctic and a team of scientists and soldiers fight it out with one of the surviving monsters. Nice mood, great tension between curious scientists and order-following soldiers, and special effects that still hold up good. Another good 1950s sci-fi. [9/10]

Hard Times (Walter Hill, 1975). During the Great Depression a tramp fights street boxing fights for money. A very simple film with few surprises, but interesting if you want to see a tough guy acting, well, tough, and beat people up for 93 minutes. [7/10]

À bout de souffle (English title: Breathless) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). A man kills a police officer in cold blood, runs from the scene and hooks up with a girl he wants to escape with. High tempo, unsympathetic characters, and a film that tries so hard to be cool it’s entertaining. [8/10]

Tempo di massacro (English title: Massacre Time) (Lucio Fulci, 1960). In the Italian wild west a man learns his home ranch has been taken over by a greedy, evil guy, so he returns home to fight them off. A violent western with the kind of one-dimensional characters you expect, but done with a sense of self distance that makes it highly enjoyable. [8/10]

Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972). Four men go on a canoe trip where nothing turns out the way they want to. I’ve heard a lot about this film, about the famous male rape scene where a character threatens he’s going to make his victim “squeal like a pig”, how the script is used in classes as an example of a perfection, and how Quentin Tarantino watched it age 8 without flinching, but cried when Bambi’s mother died. My expectations were high, and yes, the film is very good and a classic for good reasons, but parts of it felt contrived and over the top. [8/10]

Jade Warrior (original title: Jadesoturi) (Antti-Jussi Annila, 2006). A modern-day Finnish man learns he has mystical sword-fighting powers, and has to battle an ancient evil. The idea of a Finnish Kung fu film is cool, but the execution is less interesting. The fight scenes are OK, but the story has been told too many times to be fun anymore. [6/10]

Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005). Singer Johnny Cash’s rise to fame, his drug addiction and broken marriage, and his determination to keep singing. You don’t need to like Cash’s music to enjoy the film, but it doesn’t hurt. My dad has the LP record At San Quentin, live from the prison, and I used to listen to it as a kid, so I’m familiar enough with Johnny Cash. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon performed all music themselves without dubbing, and even learned their instruments from scratch, which is most impressive. A good film, especially if you’re interested in the artists. [8/10]

Millennium Actress (original title: Sennen joyû) (Satoshi Kon, 2001). A TV team interviews an old Japanese actress, and the story consists of flashbacks to her collaboration with a famous director. I like realistic anime, anime films and series that could have been made as regular films, and this is one of them. There’s a lot of neat playful things in the way it blends the flashbacks with present-day events. The main character is based on the real-life actress Setsuko Hara and the way she worked on many films with director Yasujirō Ozu. [7/10]

Chiyoko Fujiwara as young and old in Millenium Actress (2001).

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006). Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is an olfactory Wunderkind who develops an obsession with capturing smells. The story was good enough, but with silly gimmicks and a drawn out orgy scene at the end that didn’t add much. I haven’t read the book so I can’t compare the film to it. [6/10]

Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen, 1994). A struggling scriptwriter/director in New York in the 1920s desperate for getting his play performed has to compromise his artistic vision. A fun Woody Allen comedy with many memorable characters, characters that are stereotypes on theater people. I’ve seen it before, but from watching it again increased my rating from 6 to 8. [8/10]

Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006). Seemingly unrelated stories from around the world converge in this film on the necessity of communication. All stories are interesting on their own, and the way the film moves back and forth between them makes for an engaging experience. Brad Pitt is always good and in this film his character faces a really bad situation, but the character I empathized with the most was his child keeper played by Adriana Barraza. A very good film. [8/10]

The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006). A stage magician uses his tricks off stage to get the woman he wants. I like the actors Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, and they do one of their usual good performances. The story is good, but not surprising or impressive enough to warrant a top rating. [6/10]

A street corner in The Illusionist (2006).

Only Yesterday (original title: Omohide poro poro) (Isao Takahata, 1991). A Japanese woman travels from Tokyo to the countryside and reminisce her childhood. A simple, realistic and engaging anime film. I would like to see more of these non-fantastic animes. The central love story actually works, as well, which is rare. [8/10]

Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006). Queen Marie Antoinette of King Louis XVI lives a sheltered life, but reality creeps up on her and the people revolt. Sofia Coppola has made three really good films, this one included. I like how the modern and the historical is mixed. [8/10]

Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971). Private detective John Klute tries to find a missing man, but gets drawn into something big. I’ve heard good things about this film, and Donald Sutherland is good as Klute, but it seemed like the story got lost somewhere during the film. When it ends it’s about something different than in the beginning. [6/10]

The Three Faces of Eve (Nunnally Johnson, 1957). Eve suffers from multiple personality disorder, and her different personalities all have ideas on what she should do with her life. This feels like a pretty accurate depiction of multiple personality disorder, even if it’s hard to tell what is fact and fiction. A good film, and a must-see if you’re interested in deviate behavior. [7/10]

Session 9 (Brad Anderson, 2001). An asbestos cleaning crew working on an old asylum wakes an old evil. So, it’s pretty cool to use shaky hand cameras with a visual style of home videos, because it makes the film seem real, but to convince the audience it’s real the characters need personalities. The film is quite good until the horror clichés start appearing too frequently. [4/10]

Night Porter’s Point of View (original title: Z punktu widzenia nocnego portiera) (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1978). A Kieslowski documentary of a Polish watchman. His views are harsh, he thinks thieves should get their hands cut off and he catches people who fish without a permit in his spare time. But he’s also human, in that he’s lonely and dreams of a better world. I saw it as part of a double bill on the Gothenburg film festival. [8/10]

Views of a Retired Night Porter (Andreas Horvath, 2005). This was the second of the double bill films. Horvath tracked the same man down almost 30 years later and continued the interview. The man was older, but still lonely and still with a grim view on life and humanity. We got to know he had a wife, but that she had died. Ina way it felt like Horvath tried to give the man a second chance, a chance to redeem himself to the world. [7/10]

Keillers park (Susanna Edwards, 2006). This was also part of the Gothenburg film festival and a very important film that shouldn’t be needed. Keiller’s park is a park here in Gothenburg where a homosexual man was murdered by two satanists in 1997. I’d say their religion had little to do with it, but it’s hard to say why they did it, really. People still call the park “killer’s park”. What makes it extra sad is that the man’s boyfriend was initially the main suspect and has talked about the abuse he suffered from the police for his sexuality. [8/10]

Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (original title: Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro) (Hayao Miyazaki, 1979). This is not the third film in a series, but a film on Lupin the third, the world’s greatest thief. He decides to rescue a girl from the castle of Cagliostro, while looking for a hidden treasure. Even though it’s quite silly it manages to have enough of characters and story to be fun. [7/10]

Sílení (American title: Lunacy) (Jan Svankmajer, 2005). Jan Svankmajer’s films are strange and often gruesome, and when he does one based on Poe and Marquis de Sade you can guess the result. I enjoyed some of the philosophical parts, like who is mad and who is normal, but the film itself was tedious. I recommend his earlier works. [5/10]

Holly (Guy Moshe, 2006). Holly is a twelve year old Vietnamese girl sold to prostitution in Cambodia. Moshe both wrote and directed the film that is based on his own experiences of Cambodia. This was another festival film, and he was there and presented it. He talked about the horror of having eight year old children trying to sell you sex, and of the threats of filming on the actual locations of the brothels. In the film, Holly befriends an American tourists that wants to help her escape. I think the film’s subject matter is more important than the film itself, and in part rate the film based on its relationship to the world it portrays. [7/10]

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985). Pee-wee is a very silly grown man that gets his bike stolen. He goes on a great adventure to get it back. Too bad the main character was really annoying, that the situations were uninteresting and that the film couldn’t decide if it should please children or adults. [2/10]

Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006). Little Miss Sunshine takes a look on American beauty contests for children. It’s a strange world with a lot of messed up people in. For a feel-good film this is about as good as they get. The young girl Olive wins a place in a big competition by chance, and her dysfunctional family tries to help her win. Her performance on stage puts an unsubtle spotlight on what these competitions resemble. [7/10]

Porco rosso (original title: Kurenai no buta) (Hayao Miyazaki and Tony Bancroft, 1992). The crimson pig Marco is a seaplane pilot in the 1920s. He battles air pirates, duels for the woman he wants and lives alone on a secret island. He’s also the only humanoid pig in a world of humans, which makes him a very special character. I’ve seen it before and it’s a beautiful film. I increase my rating, as I usually do with films I re-watch, from 6 to 7. [7/10]

The Black Dahlia (Brian De Palma, 2006). The story of the murder of a young American woman in 1947. Or not that much about her, I think, more about the people put to solve the case. There’s a too obvious love triangle that doesn’t seem that interesting. It’s based on an Elroy story, so there’s lots of characters without any real heroes and a lot of tangled plot. [5/10]

The Visitors (original title: Les Visiteurs) (Jean-Marie Poiré, 1993). A medieval knight and servant travels through time to present-day France and tries with the help of their descendants to prevent the knight’s wife-to-be from getting killed. This is an old favorite of mine, and I’ve seen it a couple of times before. It’s very silly, but overall it’s fun enough. [7/10]

Capricciosa (Reza Bagher, 2003). A father’s alcoholism puts a lot of preassure on the rest of his family. Very predictable, but has some nice moments. Rolf Lassgård is good as always, and I like the notion of capricciosa pizza as the sign of normalcy. [5/10]

Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952). A film company switches from silent to sound films, and some people have trouble with the transition. A Hollywood musical if there ever was one. Apparently the songs were written before the script, so the script writers had to fit the plot to them. I liked the songs, and the associated musical numbers. The plot is also fun, and depicts a time with profound changes in film business. [8/10]

Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975). A great white shark terrorizes a beach, and the local police officer has to solve the problem. I’ve watched this great many times before, but Helena hadn’t seen it. When I was a kid I used to watch it with the sound turned off which, contrary to the wanted effect, made it even more scary. Steven Spielberg used the now-famous shark-point-of-view shots because the mechanical shark broke down too often, and those are the one of the great things with the film. You become the shark for a moment, and actually want it to succeed in attacking someone to get to see it. In a very effective way you’re made an accomplice. [9/10]

Shark snack in Jaws (1975).

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuarón, 2004). A new teacher has a shapeshifting problem, and Harry travels through time to solve it. Also, in the beginning of the film Harry’s tormented by his stepparents, during the film there’s a bumbling Ron, an over ambitious Hermione and everything else you’ve come to expect. Helena says the books are better, and they better be. [4/10]

Hide and Seek (John Polson, 2005). Robert De Niro plays a man whose daughter creates an imaginary friend that happens to be quite real. An ok psychological thriller. Clearly watchable, but not very memorable. [6/10]

Flash Gordon (Mike Hodges, 1980). Plot outline from IMDb: “A football player and his friends travel to the planet Mongo and find themselves fighting the tyrant, Ming the Merciless, to save Earth.” When you have Max von Sydow as Ming and Timothy Dalton as a fantasy prince, you can’t go wrong. This is a hilarious comics/sci-fi film that shouldn’t be missed. [8/10]

Flash Gordon on a flying scooter, flanked by hawkmen in Flash Gordon (1980).

La Noche de los girasoles (also known as: Angosto) (Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo, 2006). A crime is committed in a small Spanish village, and the local police has to figure it out. The story is told from different overlapping perspectives that gradually reveals the whole situation. Very good characters, even if they’re not all likeable they’re understandable. I watched it with Helena at the Gothenburg film festival, and we were both pleasantly surprised. A very strong film. [9/10]

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Tetsuya Nomura and Takeshi Nozue, 2005). A guy gets some kind of mission, fights a lot, fights some more and then the film ends. I’m told you’re supposed to be a fan of the video game the story’s a continuation of, and I haven’t even played it. I suppose the computer animations are nice, but the story and characters put me to sleep. [3/10]

Digging for Belladonna (original title: Der die Tollkirsche ausgräbt) (Franka Potente, 2006). A German high-class 1930s family discovers a mummy in their garden, which turns out to be a punk from the 1980s. This directorial debut from the actor of Lola in Run, Lola, Run and the nurse Simone in The Warrior and the Empress is a black-and-white silent short film. It has time travel, magic rituals, bizarre sex, a clever dog and wild pantomime acting. Helena and I saw it at the same film festival as Angosto. [8/10]

V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005) is based on Alan Moore’s comic book series with the same name. It tells the story of a resistance fighter called V in a dystopian parallel-history England, and his fight against the ruling state. England has survived a nuclear war, but a fascist group ceased power and started removing undesired people. V was one of them, sent to a resettlement camp, but now out to avenge what was done to him and others.

I was a bit drunk when I saw the movie, and getting drunker while I watched. I know I fell asleep sometime towards the end of the film. I had read the comic book before, and I think it was fairly true to the original. They changed the female main character from being a prostitute to some kind of office worker, and they obviously left out a whole lot of stuff. The comics are fun, for example looking for the letter V in different forms throughout the text. All chapter names in the comic start with V, the woman is called Evey, in the camp V had cell number 5 (V in Roman numerals). [7/10]

The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles, 2005). A female aid worker is killed in Africa in what appears to be a violent robbery, but her husband uncovers that her death was ordered by people in high places. A good thriller, interesting and gripping, but with a couple of flaws. First of all they do too good a job in the beginning of the film when they present the woman as being a rather bad person, and even though they try to make it appear like she did it all for a good cause the film makers don’t quite manage. Another flaw is the complete and sudden turnaround of the main character from indifferent to the peoples’ situation in Africa to very passionate. It didn’t feel motivated. [7/10]

Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006). Superman has been away checking out his home planet, but returns to Earth to deal with Lex Luthor’s plan to destroy America. The film is continuity wise tucked in somewhere in the middle of the earlier films, but it was too long since I saw them to really care. I think they tried to present Superman as more human, being jealous and stuff, but what they managed to do was create a stalker with heat vision and tendency to fly in to young kids’ bedrooms. Creepy. Kevin Spacey did his job, as usual. [6/10]

Factotum (Bent Hamer, 2005). An alcoholic writer does temp jobs to support his drinking habit and his writing, but can’t keep jobs or women for long. I really like films about writers, and this is nice in a way. While I don’t agree at all with the message presented, that you have to suffer to be a true writer and that you should therefore torment yourself, it’s presented in a good way. Loosely, I think, I’m not that familiar with him, based on the life of real-life writer Charles Bukowski. [7/10]

The Laramie Project (Moisés Kaufman, 2002). Based on the true story of the death-beating of a homosexual man in a small American town, and the media interest that followed. It feels like a sober look at what happened, but it’s a film that shouldn’t be needed. [8/10]

Faust (Jan Svankmajer, 1994). The usual Svankmajer mix of real people and animated dolls, this time of a man that gets caught in a stage play and more and more becomes one of the characters. Not as good as Alice, but still very enjoyable. [8/10]

Hets (English title: Torment) (Alf Sjöberg, 1944). A Latin teacher terrorizes his class, and a young man in the class falls in love with a woman below his social standing. Of course the teacher fancies the same woman, and and tale of abuse and jealousy gets told. I was impressed by the script by Ingmar Bergman, it’s honest and funny, and the noir-like (or Expressionist) use of shadows and camera angles. [8/10]

An abusive teacher and an amorous young man in Torment (1944).

The Call of Cthulhu (Andrew Leman, 2005). A silent movie from 2005, made by fans for fans of Lovecraft. The story of a mysterious artifact, crazed cultists summoning Great Old Ones and the crew of a ship who wakes Cthulhu. The dialogue screens are full of famous Lovecraft quotes, all story elements are familiar if you’re into this kind of thing, and it’s great fun. [9/10]

An artist troubled by non-Euclidean nightmares in The Call of Cthulhu (2005).

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973). A girl is reported missing on an isolated island, but when a police officer goes there he’s dragged into a pagan ritual of human sacrifice. That the film begins by thanking the islanders makes it feel semi-documentary, and the many great music numbers makes it feel half like a musical. It’s fun to see the straight Christian cop wrestle with the islanders’ sex-obsessed paganism. [7/10]

One of the strange pagan rituals in The Wicker Man (1973).

Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955). Mike Hammer is a tough investigator who gets dragged into a mess by a girl, a mess that circles around a suitcase with a mysterious glowing content. It’s fun to finally see the famous Spillane hero, Hammer’s like a casual James Bond, but the film has an extremely silly side-character mechanic and an even sillier ending. [6/10]