Reviews

The Station Agent

Life is not easy when you are not like other people. This is an every day truth for Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage), a dwarf who has been stared at and made fun of so many times, that he has more or less closed himself off from the rest of the world. He only has one real friend, Henry, and together with him he runs a shop that specializes in model trains. Trains are Finbar's passion. He collects them, reads about them and spots them, whenever he has the time. This passion gets a new boost when one day Henry dies. He leaves Finbar a station house in a small town in New Jersey, and Fin decides to move there right away. It seems like the ideal live for him. Far away from other people, in a station house next to the tracks... Here, he will surely be able to blend into obscurity?

Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith

Watching the last Star Wars movie gave me a weird, kind of sad feeling. Because even though the movie kicks ass, it does signal the end of an era, the end of a journey that started almost thirty years ago, which took us to places we could not even have dreamed of, and which has now been concluded. And even though the series goes out with a bang, it still means there will be no new Star Wars movies in the cinema. Period. That is, until the inevitable rerelease in a special, even more digitally enhanced version a few years from now.

Birth

There has been a lot to do about Birth, a small drama starring Nicole Kidman. There's a scene where a naked Nicole shares a bath with a naked 10 year old boy. There is a scene where the 10 year old kisses Nicole on the mouth. Hearing this was enough reason for some people to cry "Outrage!" and to try their best to get people to ban the movie. If those people would actually have seen the movie before they would have gotten their panties in a twist, they would have understood that nothing about all this is gratuitous. Yes, the moments are uneasy, but that is because the movie wants us to feel uneasy.

Stage Beauty

Stage Beauty takes us back to a time when, in Great Britain at least, women were not allowed to act. The female roles in theatre plays were portrayed by male actors who made a whole career out of acting like a woman. Ned Kynaston (Crudup) is one of those actors, and many people consider him to be the best at what he does. So when he one day learns that the ban on female actors is broken, his world collapses. He still considers himself to be the best woman on stage, but the crowd begs to differ. Things turn extra sour for Ned when it turns out that his assistant Maria (Danes) is extremely talented and ready to take over the roles that made Ned such a big star. And while Maria's star keeps rising, Ned slumps into a deep depression, which makes you wonder if he will ever act again.

Kung Fu Hustle

No matter which big summer movies you are planning on seeing this year, the chances are very slim that you will see anything that is as exciting, crazy and just plain fun as Kung Fu Hustle. Stephen Chow, mastermind behind such Hong Kong blockbusters as Shaolin Soccer and The God of Cookery, presents us his most imaginative brainchild yet, filling the 95 minutes of running time with crazy characters, wild stunts and hilarious scenes that you won't find anywhere else. When this movie comes out on DVD, it will be a nightmare for the people watching it with you, because every few minutes you will be grabbing for the remote control so you can rewind all the memorable scenes again and again.

Code 46

Code 46 is a frustrating movie. Having heard the premise, and having seen some images from the movie, I quickly came to the conclusion that this was a movie I would probably enjoy very much. I enjoy seeing filmmaker's interpretations of the future, and since this was a small production compared to the big Hollywood sci-fi movies, I expected it to be full of interesting ideas. And I was right in that degree, but still I was not able to love the movie as much as I had hoped. Director Winterbottom succeeds so well in painting an image of a cold, heartless future, that this coldness also extends to the storyline, meaning that the plight of the main characters left me shrugging my shoulders. A little more warmth in the romance between the lead characters would have done wonders.

It's All About Love

This curious movie was waiting for me in a Finnish supermarket, where we fished it out of a display filled with movies for 2 euros. I like going through the bargain bin, because you never know what you will find there. Singles was in the same bin for 2 euros as well, and that can be considered to be a pretty good movie, and I thought that with It's All About Love I had also found a little gem. After all, it's directed by Tomas Vinterberg, the man behind Festen, and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Clare Danes and Sean Penn, whilst the story also intrigued me.

Kingdom of Heaven

There are some people that complain that there have been too many big, lavish movie epics lately. Me, I love this type of movie. If there is one sort of movie that seems tailor made for the big screen experience, then it’s a movie where thousands of people are hacking away at each other, while all around them cities are burning and heroic warriors yell heroic stuff like “For God and Glory!” or “Let’s finish off these bastards before teatime!”

About a Boy

And yet another Nick Hornby book gets turned into a wonderful movie. After High Fidelity and Fever Pitch, Hornby-fans can now revel in About a Boy. It again has a hero who seems to be obsessed by one thing, which makes it difficult for him to properly connect to women. In High Fidelity it was music, in Fever Pitch football (I'm talking about the original movie here) and the lead character in About a Boy is a master at doing nothing. He's so good at doing nothing that he has become afraid of doing anything that has any meaning, which becomes a bit of a problem when one day a boy shows up on his doorstep. This boy, with all his problems and mannerisms, turns our hero's life around completely, whether he likes it or not.

48 HRS

You could blame this movie for starting the whole cop-buddy craze which had movie theaters in it's grasp during the eighties and early nineties, but that would not be really fair to the people behind this movie. Because while many of the movies that followed in the footsteps of 48 HRS are pretty horrendous, this movie hits all the right tones. It's funny, thrilling and also packs a punch in the emotional department. Besides that, it shows Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in top form, a form that they were not able to reach again in many others of their movies. It's Eddie Murphy at his most raw and funny, and Nick Nolte at his most grumpy and unforgiving, and the combination works like real movie magic. It elevates the standard cop thriller plot to a much higher level than it deserves.