Movies 2014

I watch this every single year, and it never gets old, lame or bad. Richard Curtis has mastered the genre, apparently (Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, this...). Why I watch Love Actually over and over again? Because it's the best christmas movie there is (I really like christmas and this gets me in the mood), it's funny, romantic, touching and humane. Love Actually makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and I love it!

This was okay because a) this could actually happen, b) there wasn't any unnecessary fussing, screaming and chaos going on, and c) it wasn't too long. But there were too many characters and many of their storylines were left loose.

I'm not sure if it was the directing or what, but it was brilliant how touching was emphasized right from the beginning of the movie. You don't usually stop and think how many surfaces/things you touch during an average day. Almost made me felt like wearing a plastic suit for the rest of my life so I don't catch some deadly disease AND DIE.

The journey ends, and that makes me so sad. Fortunately, one can always watch both LotR and Hobbit movies again and again, so there really is nothing to be sad about.

Based on the trailer, I feared the worst. And there were some really stupid bits in this movie, but all in all it was good - should I even say really good? Shortly put: there were more awesome than annoying things.

The stupid bits: Every scene about Legolas. Every scene about Tauriel. But I think that was it. So that's not so bad! :D

Richard Armitage did a great job acting both mad and awesome Thorin. Dain was awesome too! And the whole dwarf army. And, and, and! All the rest, almost. It's probably needless to say how pretty it was visually. Even the battle, which I feared the most in advance, was a pleasure to watch. And that ending, binding these movies (even) more closely to LotR, was really nicely done.

Me and my BF are most likely going to go watch it again. It has become kind of a tradition to go and see the current Hobbit movie again during Christmas holidays. :) There's so much happening in these movies, that it's hard to grasp everything during the first time.

EDIT. It's been a week and a half since we first went to see this, and today we went to see it again like I "promised". Still liked it. If the family drama of the elves would have been left out, that would have been nice. :P And every single time Legolas was on screen, my brains yelled "what the fuck's wrong with his face?". Perhaps they had tried to make him look younger or something, but the result is ridiculous. Tauriel's character makes me wanna hit something. That whole thing with her and Kili, with the whole elvish family drama, is IMO a sign of sad underestimation of audiences. There is no need to put such sappy sideplots to a story to make it interesting or appealing to moviegoers. The effect is quite opposite, I'm afraid. But yeah, nothing more to add to my previous review.

PS. "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." So true. Even though this line had been modified a bit for the movie, but the message is the same anyway.

Rewatched, I have seen this like ten times before. But it's been a while. One of my favourite films when I was a teenager! Aww.

Textbook romantic comedy, shortly put. Late 1990s - early 2000s was the golden era of the genre, I think. What is great about British romcoms is that even though they are of course sugary as it gets, there is this certain "realistic" and genuinely heartwarming aspect. Whereas American romcoms tend to be very plastic and superficial. I think it has to do with British people being so adorably awkward in a certain way. And for example William's roommate Spike (and William's other friends also) and Rufus (excellent Dylan Moran) are hilarious minor characters that make you laugh out loud. :')

I did not expect this to be this meta! And funny. :D I don't know what did I expect, but this certainly was a hilarious surprise. Loved it! A story about (love) stories. A gentle and loving parody of fantasy literature & fantasy/adventure films.

Must read the book also! :)

PS. Inigo Montoya=Oberyn Martell - mind BLOWN O_O

Oh dear lord, where to begin?!

First of all, not a single person on this planet is going to be surprised of the fact that I LOVED this part of The Hollow Crown most dearly. Because, for the love of god, Mr. Tom Hiddleston. Let's have a moment of silence to his mad skills in acting. --- Okay, now that that's done, to the review.

That battle of Agincourt sure was something! Henry V consisted mostly of depicting that (what events led to it, how the Englishmen marched to war etc). But since this is Shakespeare, there was also lots of talking and it was beautiful. King Harry, oh man, I would have followed that man into any battle, against any odds! He could have talked me into anything. (Anything, ahem.)

In addition to the epic battle and all things related to that, Henry V also features the most adorable scene, where Harry is wooing the daughter of the King of France, Katherine. That scene was NOT Shakespearean at all IMHO! It was so... Hiddleston. :D Hiddleston all over.

Why 5/5? Because this TV film did everything right - and I'm not referring to historical accuracies here, but its achievements as a TV film. And the power of Mr. Hiddleston cannot be underestimated. He is made of pure English awesome. I rest my case.

Shakespearean awesomeness continues. You know what? I hate that Falstaff, even though KING Hal was being a dick in the end. But oh, you know, kings do have an image to maintain. Looking forward to see how Hal fills his father's shoes - or crown - and manages to keep the kingdom in order.

Fangirlishly speaking: That bath house scene was almost too much, but I survived. Hurrah! "Join us this celebration of the male form", like some wise guy once said. And the scene where Hal takes the crown from his father's pillow, walks into the throne room, sits on the throne and WEEPS like the kingly angel he is. Ohhh.

Oh yummy! This is more like it! After Richard II Henry IV (part 1) was like running out of the door into the refreshing spring morning! So to speak. :D Richard II was so heavy. Don't get me wrong, so is this, but in a different manner. And also, I didn't have subtitles in Richard II but now I had. I'm guessing that made a big difference also.

I love Jeremy Irons, I love Tom Hiddleston - what is there not to love? Both have more acting skills in one eyebrow than most other actors in their whole appearance.

As previously said, I have this Hiddles-thing going on :D But I had heard about this new series of Shakespeare TV movies before this pathetic fangirling phase of mine.

Ben Whishaw's performance as Richard II is expressive and full of feeling, but... I'm sorry, but I laughed way too often while watching this! I found myself repeating "oh, this is brilliant, hahaha!" more than once. I haven't read or watched Shakespeare in a while, so I guess it took some time to get used to the pompous language. And let's face it: there's lots of talking, but nothing much happens. (My BF almost died of boredom while watching.) But still, I did enjoy watching this. Not everything has to be always full of action, sometimes it is nice to stop and cherish the art of words. Shakesperean language is beautiful, there is no denying it. My favourite bit was probably the "let's talk of graves" etc.

Another one of YLE Teema's film festival movies.

This wasn't the first time I saw The Shining, but it's been a while.

This IS a great movie, truly. Everything works, and most importantly the film works as a whole. Quite the masterpiece. What I particularly like is the incredibly disturbing, pressuring and haunting "feeling" or atmosphere which begins with the insanely ominous title sequence and ends with the ending credits. It lasts through the entire film. And this is very rare: there are very few films, that have managed to pull this off.

So why not five stars? I'm not sure. For one, Wendy's actress' performance is frustrating and annoying. And the problem here is not the character itself, but Shelley Duvall - or Kubrick's directing.

YLE Teema (Finnish TV channel) is having a film festival this week, and this was one of those films.

I was in this movie course at the university a couple years back, and this was one the films we examined there. So it was very cool to see the whole thing finally!

It's hard to review films as old as this, because I'm not sure if one can talk about them using the same criteria when reviewing modern films, or even use the same words/concepts. Anyway, I liked it, very much. The dark and twisted atmosphere grabbed a hold of me. All the handmade props/sets were beautiful! I especially liked the ending which took place in the madhouse.

I don't know if this is a amateurish thing to say, but the acting was terrible :D All the "dramatic" facial expressions and such. But back then acting was a different thing (for one, the movies were silent), or we as (post)modern viewers are used to different kind of acting. Or we expect different things from acting - or at least I do.

Well, that was depressing. Also a bit more artsy than I expected. Neither of these aren't necessarily bad things.

The dialogue was good, the acting was good (what a beautiful pair they were!), but the characters and their fates remained distant to me somehow. It was like reading some stranger's diary which was written in a language I don't speak that well. A text full of gaps that I wasn't able to fill by myself.

Checked my watch more than a couple of times to see when is this going to end - not a good sign.

So... I've got this Hiddles-thing going on, so imagine my disappointment, when HE DIES (Benny dies, too) after having only 10 minutes (or so) of screen time. Oh god. But I got over it, because the film itself turned out to be surprisingly good!

The plot seems a bit childish on the surface: guy raises a horse, guy loses the horse, the horse (and the guy) goes to war, both survive, and are reunited in the end. But what do you know! It was touching, almost heartbreakingly so. When Joey got caught in that barb wire, I almost cried. And the following scene, with the English and the German soldier helping Joey - pure genious! War Horse is a beautiful movie in every sense.

Rewatched.

I can't quite put my finger on it, why I like these Hobbit movies so much. I've watched the first part honestly ~10 times. This was the third time watching Desolation of Smaug. Guess I'm in love with Middle-Earth. It's my safe haven. Lord of the Rings trilogy is one my absolute favorites. I have a special kind of relationship to it, like so many other people of my generation.

Let's face it, three three-hour movies based on a relatively short novel is quite too much (cough*money*cough). But what the hell, let's lay back and enjoy! Because these films are entertaining and beautiful. Tolkien's original text is being raped more or less (mostly more), but the movies do work quite nicely as modern fantasy/adventure films. The best parts of DoS are IMO Smaug, Dol Guldur and Smaug. Oh, and did I mention Smaug?

Almost forgot that this was the extended edition! I don't feel like there were that much important stuff left out from the movie theatre version. So the extended scenes weren't very exciting for me.

The Battle of the Five Armies trailer has not convinced me, I fear it will be a celebration of special effects in the form of epic battles and nothing more, BUT I'm still looking forward to it. See, I don't understand myself! x)

Rokumentti part V.

I loved these two grannies! :') (Grannies in general are great, can't wait to become one.) These grannies were adorable and funny, but also sharp and cunning pair of women. They wonder: does the economy have to grow? Do we have to keep on buying and consuming? They try to get answers from university lecturers and financial experts, they even infiltrate on a Wall Street dinner in order to find some answers.

Rokumentti part IV.

Bettie Page was such a beauty, and still remains an inspiration to all women who wish to embrace their sexuality. This documentary film truly revealed all: all the good stuff, but also at least some of the not so nice things about her life and personality. Film was narrated by Bettie herself, which gave it a very realistic tone. Tons of pictures and also video clips of Bettie were shown.

Rokumentti part III.

Awesome. Flawless. Edgy. Funny. Moving. Relatable. I wish it would have lasted longer than 97 minutes.

I have to start watching more Nordic films, they're always so great!

Rokumentti part II.

This was a film about the metal band Lamb of God. When they started to make this film, they had no idea, that eventually the singer, Randy Blythe, would face charges of manslaughter and would spend 38 days at a prison in Prague. The court part of the film was interesting, but I enjoyed more of the other stuff: touring, interviews with the fans and interviews with the members of the band. I have to say, that while watching, I hoped that the movie theatre people would have cranked up the volume, so the music would have been louder! I like Lamb of God, I've even seen them live once or twice.

Rokumentti Rock Film Festival is on!

The first movie I went to see, was this. I have not read any of his work, but of course I have heard of him. I really liked his poetry featured on this film, so I'm definitely going to read some of that in the future! The film/documentary itself was "ok". Kind of a traditional biography film. I especially liked all the video clips from the 70s and 80s, those really got me into the right mood, so to say.

Wow. WOW. I was nailed to my seat for the whole 2 hours and 50 minutes. Visually stunning, but also thought-provoking and veeeeery interesting. I wish I was smarter so I could understand black holes and other cool stuff better!

The score was also interesting: lots of organ music. It enhanced the intense atmosphere quite nicely.

Rewatched.

Rewatched.

I'm a huge fan of the TV series SG SG-1 and SG Atlantis, so of course I respect this film in a certain way, because it's the point of origin of those series. But as a movie, Stargate is quite average. Not bad at all, but everything is left so open and unfinished! What a shame it would have been, if the potential of the mythology introduced in this movie would not have been used. Fortunately, SG-1 (and the spin-offs) happened!

Against my expectations, listal informed me that I had watched this before - didn't even remember... what a load of crap. One star for the shirtless werewolves. But I _am_ going to watch the rest also, because one has to know the target of one's ridicule in order to do it properly! ;)

I had the DVD in my shelf for two years (?), but for some reason I didn't watch it until now.

Oh! This captured the spirit of C. Brontë's novel (= my absolute favourite book) really good. Fassy as Mr. Rochester was extraordinary. Playing with the different time levels also worked.

EDIT. ...aaand I watched it again.

Rewatched.

Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson as Hades and Zeus is an amazing thing, and visually the movie was neat, but nothing new under the sun.

Queen Gorgo!
Artemisia!

Really liked it visually, the dark atmosphere in general was nice, BUT there wasn't very much content in the story. You can go only so far with just abs and beauty.

Rewatched.

Terminator 1 and 2 are classics for a reason. Unlike so many other action movies, they have a serious theme that provokes you to think.

Rewatched.

Rewatched x 2.

One of my favourites from Marvel movies! I mean Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Loki (!!!) and all the rest in a same movie? It's impossible to fail in that. "Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?" will go down in history as one of the best lines ever! :D

Rewatched x 2.

Captain America may be the best superhero. He is kind and he is just. He is moral, but not obnoxiously so. He has become a superhero for all the right reasons, if I may say so.

The First Avenger is (obviously) also a WWII movie, and not a bad one in that category either.

When I first saw GotG-trailer I thought "okay Marvel, what the heck is this?!". But it was surprisingly good and entertaining as hell! It was funny. And space is always beautiful. The dance-off in the end was so hilarious and I did not see it coming. What I also did not see coming was Drax calling Gamora a green whore, which was totally wrong and no, no, no.

I am Groot! *_*

I totally understand why people are (still) pissed off that Firefly got canceled. It had great potential to become an awesome scifi series. Serenity was also a damn good movie, and I am grateful that it was made to fill the hole the series left in your heart.

Yes, it's a cliche, but: such an inspiration! As a post-graduate student of literature and a humanist, I very much enjoyed this one.

Expendables 1 was a mess, but the second movie was great. Third one was also good! It's a pleasure to watch these old guys in action, it's so awww :D The level of intertextuality almost overwhelmes us all. And a female-expendable, wow!

Insane idea, insane movie. Tilda Swinton was great as always. But the ending ruined it all for me, meh.

Expected a lot from this one, but it was a bit of a disappointment. The jokes started to repeat themselves and blah. But Melissa McCarthy is still one of the funniest women I know!

Rewatched.

Not bad at all, I applaud for this. A very decent action movie, and time-traveling is always nice. Even Tom Cruise didn't bother me in this one. Emily Blunt's character is great! Not some helpless and whiny idiot, but a strong lady.

EDIT. Watched it again with my man. Still decent!

Oh the disappointment :( Angelina Jolie truly is stunning as Maleficent, but if the whole movies consists of her looking fierce and special effects ripped off from LOTR (or from any other fantasy movie since the trilogy), then blah. If you had left the prince out altogether, then it would have been something fresh!

x 2

A bit confusing and full of holes and gaps, but the acting of the lead stars was impeccable. Manpain!

Rewatched.

The best of X-Men movies so far (I am writing this after DoFP). Looks good, acting is great, everything in it works.

Rose straight to my top 10 movies ever. Strong, moving, real, thought-provoking.

Okay, I do love Nikolaj also.