Jonas Ferry’s blog

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]

Zatôichi (Takeshi Kitano, 2003). The blind masseur/swordsman Zatôichi gangs up with two geishas to defeat a common enemy. Oh, the blood! They used CGI effects to create the blood spurts, but didn’t even try to make them look realistic. The dreamlike effect of the blood spurts hanging in midair for half a second is beautiful. A good samurai movie, with the two geisha’s pasts being quite creepy. [8/10]

The United States of Leland (Matthew Ryan Hoge, 2003). A young man is sent to a jail for juveniles after killing another boy, and is befriended by one of the teachers who wants to write a book about him. This movie tries so hard to be profound, but falls well short of the line. [5/10]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977). Aliens visiting Earth, and the people whose lives are affected. This is a good film, apart from the annoying tone sequence that was repeated until it burned itself into my brain, most interesting as a story of people obsessed with things others can’t see. [7/10]

Eyes Without a Face (original title: Les Yeux sans visage (Georges Franju, 1960). A plastic surgeon and his female assistant kidnaps young women to remove their faces and put on the doctor’s daughter deformed face. A chilling story, with the eerie mood increased by the daughter “floating” around in the mansion with a nondescript white mask on her face to hide all emotions. [8/10]

Ken Park (Larry Clark and Edward Lachman, 2002). A bunch of kids with different difficulties in their lives, mostly with parents, look for calm and support in each other. They really manage to make the parents unsympathetic (child molesting fathers, beer-drinking pregnant mothers), but in the end the whole message of the film is “shrug”. [7/10]

Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997). Two men attack a family in their home and makes them perform sadistic games. A statement on media violence and how we as viewers respond to it, the film breaks the fourth wall a couple of times to great effect. [9/10]

Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957). In the trenches of World War I a number of soldiers are sentenced to death acting cowardly to cover up the superiors’ tactical mistakes. A very good film that conveys it’s message brilliantly. You can almost taste the hopelessness of the soldiers’ situation. [9/10]

Intacto (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2001). Some people have the ability to steal people’s luck by touching them, and then compete against each other in games of chance to decide who’s the luckiest. Visually very good, with a nice story and cool games. Also, Max von Sydow plays the luckiest man on Earth, and he’s good as always. [8/10]

Happiness (Todd Solondz, 1998). This ironically titled film is about different people being unhappy with various things in their lives. The humor is pitch black, but I rather enjoyed it. It was fun to see Cynthia Stevenson playing the sister of someone called “Joy”, as her character in Dead Like Me (TV-series, 2003) is called exactly that. Then again, I don’t know how common the name is in America. [8/10]

Julien Donkey-Boy (Harmony Korine (uncredited), 1999). Julien is a schizophrenic man, and in disjointed scenes we follow him in different parts of his life. I liked that Korine had used a relative as a basis for the character, as he feels real, and I really liked Werner Herzog as the father. But I didn’t like the obvious event that happened to the sister, how you can’t know if you’re supposed to be mad because exactly what you expect happens. [7/10]