I never saw Hotel Rwanda, because I watched "Sometimes in April" on the Berlinale a few month before Hotel Rwanda came out. April deals with the same topic, but from what I hear it does it in a much better way than Hotel Rwanda did.

It's very intense and saddening. I remember looking around me when the credits were rolling in the Berlinale Palast (huge beautiful cinema where all Berlinale films are premiered) and almost everyone had tears in their eyes. AFAIK some of the african actors lived in Rwanda during the Genocide, so I guess that made their performances so very good.

I suggest you check it out if you are interested in this particular topic. But be warned, this movie stayed with me for a couple of days, and it really affected me. 

yep seen it, which is probably why I was harsher on this. Its pretty heavy going like you say but considering the topic you pretty much know you're not in for anything light from the start. But it's pretty powerful stuff which sticks around in your head for sure.

Hotel goes more for a Schindler's List approach narrative wise, but at the very least Schindler's was a real film using the many options of cinema rather than just telling a story in a very unoriginal, closed and sloppy manner. 

Well, it's a shame considering that April was the better movie that Hotel got so much media attention. 

and by Hollywood :)

Its also a shame that such a bad film features one of the best recent performances out of Hollywood. 

First try, a friend and me and a camera.

http://haukerehfeld.de/misc/film/Testing1.avi (20 mb) 

 

but seriously dude, 20Mb for 8 seconds of footage of a dude running down a corridor? You really should have converted that to MPEG before uploading it!

Interesting camera work though! Good action feel to it I guess, or something.... 

it's just a test rendering, i figured i wouldn't waste any time on it. and it's already compressed ;)

Glad you like it =D 

Try xvid or AVC/H264. Also deinterlace (if it's meant for computer monitors)!

And for the love of god compress the audio with mp3. ;)

Try H264 (x264) with 2 pass, average bitrate of 1000kbps and joint-stereo abr mp3 ~128kbps. That results in 1/10th the size and on-par quality (you might need to tweak a bit for the colors though). 

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/16155928/review/21477208/the_dark_knight 

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/16155928/review/21477208/the_dark_knight 

The homonyms will be my downfall. 

my most anticipated movie of the year, last one was excellent. 

Really loving the latest trailer for TDK, Begins was hands down my favourite "super hero" movie made so far and I think they really nailed the Joker character for the sequel.

CANNOT WAIT :) 

The Merchant of Venice (2004) - problematic but reasonably competent version of the shakespeare play. Its not one I've come across before but I believe the movie changes the play's focus from the comedy/love story angle to the much more interesting mini tragedy involving Shylock.

This decision is both good and bad, good because the movie spends less time with the awful and smug Joseph Fiennes and his attempts to win over Lynn Collins' Portia and more time with Al Pacino's Shylock (easily one of pacino's best recent performances), the jewish lender who literally seeks a 'pound of flesh' on forfeit of a bond as revenge for the torment he has had to endure over the years. But its bad because it also means the focus on Shylock leaves all the other characters (except maybe Portia) very underdeveloped and when the action moves away from Shylock's story, the movie bogs down noticeably.

6.5/10


Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) - danish director Susanne Bier's hollywood debut is a decent if unremarkable affair held together by strong acting from Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry.

Berry plays a wife whose husband suddenly dies in unfortunate circumstances and Del Toro the recovering junkie best friend of the husband. They form a bond after the death and help each other with their grief and problems.

In other hands it could have been a very shonky, cliched and oversentimental movie, but in Bier's hands it never ends up like that even though Allan Loeb's flawed screenplay tries to push it in that direction.

However, in an effort to negate some of the dodgy scripting, Bier does also go a bit overboard with her stylistic touches which end up distracting and she would have been better off relying more on the strength of Del Toro's and Berry's acting to overcome the script problems. Still, overall, it's a fairly solid work that's worth watching.

6.5/10


The Piano (1991) - not great but its not bad either. The direction and writing waver a bit between very good and questionable and it also looks very ugly.

But most the performances are quite first rate and the music is excellent too. The rest of it is quite interesting, I am not so sure the execution was quite there though.

6/10


Sorry Wrong Number (1948) - quite good film noir by Anatole Livtak that's beautifully shot and well performed by Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster. Not quite as good as other noirs both actors have been in but still excellent stuff.

7-7.5/10


Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) - I was ready to absolutely hate this but its actually decent if a bit stupid, corny and crude on occasions. It looks great and Henry Mancini's score is perfectly suited but I'm not sure about the rest which wavers in quality.

Audrey Hepburn works overall but still doesn't suit the role, some of the humour works but some of it is terrible, some of the drama works and some of it is just orchestrated by silly plot contrivances. There's a pretty good film in here somewhere, but it gets lost in what was probably a combination of restrictions of the era and sloppy direction from Blake Edwards.

6/10


Howl's Moving Castle (2004) - beautifully animated as usual by Miyazaki, in fact it's probably the best 2d animation I've seen, but once again the actual film just didn�t work for me.

It starts off fine and is reasonably decent for the first hour or so but then the last 40 min seems to have a mind of its own and makes absolutely no sense. I suppose you just have to go with it for it to work but I wasn�t prepared to.

5.5/10


The Player (1992) - quite entertaining but only a fluffy semi-skewering satire about the Hollywood system by Robert Altman. There's far too much winking at the audience for it to be anything more, but it's made well enough to be worth watching, especially if you like movies since there's about a gazillion references to films prior to this.

7/10


2:37 (2006) - decent debut from young aussie murali thalluri, showing plenty of confidence and talent, despite obvious influences from Gus Van Sant's Elephant.

I liked this better than Vant Sant's film though because the characterisations were better and more sympathetic, despite using stock characters and situations. Nothing new here but it's quite well done.

7/10 

has that something, at least that Danish dogma movie Elsker Dig for Evigt or sth was good.
There are a million Danish and Swedish flicks handling those themes though, serious family/individual slow drama style.
Maybe Bergman's portraits of a marriage series was the grandmomma of them all on film. And of course there are probably much more books written earlier.

I have a bit mixed approach to that stuff. On one hand I'm cynical and they seem funny since the people end up in such stupid decisions constantly. On the other hand, it's sometimes too much to bear for the fragility of the people and their emotions and vulnerability. And sometimes, rarely though, something unexpected happens and the movie breaks out of the mold. 

After the Wedding, which was great.

Have two others though, Open Hearts and Brothers which I'll get around too who knows when.

And there's big influences from Bergman for sure, which is not a bad thing. 

You've all heard it, you can't un-hear it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio

I always wondered where this cinematic legend came from :) 

funny ! 

Drillbit Taylor (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0817538/
So stupid that typing this is a waste. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Was fun. Before I saw it, I was told that it was a very reactive film: things just happen, for no reason, and the characters just react to them, which was pretty accurate but also pretty irrelevant to enjoying the ride.

Breach

Interesting spy tale, sent me off to wikipedia to read up on the real events (which, as far as pikiwedia goes at least, seem to be pretty accurately reflected in the film). But dear God, it starts slowly.

Prince Caspian

Eh... I need to read the books again, I think. But this seemed pretty uneven. I kept trying to just see it as a fantasy tale and ignore the religious overtones and failing. Whether this say most about me, the source or the film making, I'm not really sure. 

not as good as 1 and 3, but better than 2 IMHO.

I found Breach above average, but apart from the main acting it was a bit lacking. 

The Dark Knight - the best film of the year to date by a considerable margin. Starts off a bit messily where its overly chaotic for the first 45 min or so but once it settles down, it's an absolute cracker of a movie. The second half in particular is some of the most thrilling cinema in recent years.

From very early on it establishes that the threats are real and the stakes are high, something which serves it very well during the second half where it feels like anything can happen.

Performances are absolutely first rate (especially Ledger, Eckhart and Oldman) and save a couple of lines of dialogue, its also pretty well written.

8.5/10 

 

if you can, definitely watch it in IMAX.