The Element of Crime (1984)

A Danish crime film noir directed by Lars von Trier, starring Michael Elphick.
A detective is hypnotized and tells a story to the therapist. He was trying to solve a series of murders by following his mentor's advice and following the path of the killer.
All red video is difficult to rate with a different colored review. The plot and characters would have been more interesting if the visual aspect had not hurt my eyes so badly. The camera-work would have looked good in any other color scheme. Wikipedia says that it was shot in sodium lights. This won lots of awards, but I don't see why (pun). I rate it the most frequent color on screen: a red, bad rating. There are much better (not horrible) Lars von Trier films to watch instead of this.

Natura Contro A.K.A. Against Nature, The Green Inferno, Cannibal Holocaust II (1988)

An Italian adventure directed by Antonio Climati.
A group of amateur explorers is led by a journalist looking for a lost professor in the Amazon jungle.
Stupid and pointless. Wikipedia states that this film "effectively ended the cannibal genre", which is true. Mostly because there were no cannibals! The plot lacked a main conflict, opting instead for multiple smaller conflicts and none with the indigenous people. There was nudity, violence, gore and wild animals. However, nothing actually shocking enough to consider it a mondo film. I rate it bad. Don't watch it.

Fallen Angels A.K.A. Duòluò tiānshǐ (1995)

A Chinese drama directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Karen Mok.
Four people rattle around Hong Kong. One man lives with his father and works at closed stores at night. The other man is an assassin. One woman shakes and may have some relationship with the assassin. The other woman likes rain and wants a relationship with the assassin.
I guess this is the Chinese version of Mike Leigh's British slice of life dramas. I like the camera-work more, but the plots less. There were so many good shots with dutch angles, reflections and blurs. The motorcycle through the tunnel was absolutely beautiful (image). If all you want is the video and don't care about any other aspect, I would recommend this. Not so much for any other reason. I rate it o.k.

Parasite (1982)

An American science fiction directed by Charles Band, starring Demi Moore and Luca Bercovici.
A scientist has made a parasite and become infected with one of them. He is on the run from a government agent and stops at a boarding house in a small town to attempt completing his research. Local hooligans ambush him and are infected with the other parasite.
Everyone seems to hate this, but after the crap I've been watching, it wasn't too bad. It was poorly written, slow paced and badly acted. On the plus side, the editing was slow enough for me to see what was going on, I could hear what everyone was saying and it had a premise which the sparse plot could actually live up to. The fight scenes looked terrible and unconvincing. It was too obvious that these people were not hitting one another. Although better than the crap I watched before, this is still not a good movie. I rate it poor. You probably should not watch it.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

A German British American French Canadian Australian action film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, starring Milla Jovovich.
Alice finds that she has a time limit to reach the origin of the zombie apocalypse and release an antivirus.
Total fucking shit. This is competing with Ben-Hur and Some Kind of Monster for worst movie ever made (self-reference cliche). It starts out alright with a recap of the story and into a fight with a giant bat or moth type monster. Then you realize that the editing is too fast for your eyes to follow. I'm talking like single frame cuts at 60fps here! Once you realize that you will never be able to process what is happening, you also realize that the plot is almost vacant. Hero woman has to get somewhere in a time limit and stuff is in her way. That's all there is. I rate this shit because I want the past 1:38:04 of my life back. I really wish that I could sue these horrible filmmakers for time. I would be immortal with all the crap I've seen.

Paganini Horror (1989)

An Italian horror directed by Luigi Cozzi.
A pop band decide to use the famous composer's music and house for a song and music video. Unfortunately, this awakens some type of evil in the house.
I don't even need to list everything that was wrong with or bad about this. A list of what was right or interesting is much shorter. Most of the camera-work was terrible, but there were a few city scenes (probably in Venice) which looked amazing (image). All of the playing of musical instruments was faked extremely unconvincingly, but an amplifier is seen in one of the shots toward the end which matches an amp that I have. It's a Peavey VXT Classic from the early 1980s. That's all that's worth mentioning. I rate this shit because I should have turned it off and would not recommend it to anyone, even to mock.

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)

An American TROMA fantasy directed by Brett Piper.
A young woman in a post-apocalyptic world is fought over by men around her who kill one another or are eaten by dinosaurs.
I think "basic" describes this best. It was so simple, yet a total failure at its modest goals. It seemed like such a good idea and an easy win, but something went wrong. Almost bad to the point of being funny, but not quite. The writing, casting, acting, camera-work, special effects and editing sucked. There is really no information available about this besides name, date, cast and crew. I imagine that the dinosaurs were a mix of puppets and stop motion. They looked worse than The Lost World (1925). The female lead was on the "Itty Bitty Tittie Committee" and there was so little dialogue that the plot became obscured by lack of speech. I rate this bad and would not recommend it to anyone. You really should not watch it.

Days of Being Wild (1990)

A Chinese romance directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau and Jacky Cheung.
3 men have relationship problems with 3 women. One of the men is adopted, dislikes his adopted mother and wants to find his real parents.
Muddy plot. I watched an hour of it, then read the plot on Wikipedia and turned it off. It just doesn't make sense to me. If my understanding of the plot is correct, it's a whole lot of nothing, so why even bother making the movie? Everyone else online seems to think it's great though. Something is wrong here. I rate this shit in accordance with my turn off policy. Do not watch! ...or listen to everyone else and watch it. I don't care.

Chungking Express A.K.A. Chóngqìng sēnlín (1994)

A Chinese romance directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Brigitte Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
Two men having a hard time dealing with relationship breakups meet other women. One of them is obsessive compulsive. He buys cans of pineapple with a certain expiration date and meets a woman involved in drug smuggling. The other man likes flight attendants and talking to inanimate objects. He meets a woman who works at the snack bar where both men eat. The snack bar woman gets keys (which are never seen or mentioned) to his apartment without him knowing and begins going there when he is not around.
The video professor where I went to school would be in awe of this. I saw lots of Dutch angles and selective focus. Too bad the $5000 school cameras were too crappy to do selective focus. I'm usually not into romance films, but the plot and characters held my attention. It doesn't matter that I thought it was all one continuous plot about the same man. This also featured a Cantonese cover of an American pop song, "Dreams" by The Cranberries. It's very odd to hear a song that was overplayed when I was in high school sung in Cantonese. There were some humorous moments to mention: the first man eating 30 cans of pineapple and the second man talking to a bar of soap and a towel. What really made me laugh about the latter was when Faye replaced these items and he was talking to them as if they had changed, not been replaced. Lecturing soap about gaining weight is comical. I rate this adequate. You may want to read the plot first, but it's worth watching.

Out of the Furnace (2013)

An American crime drama directed by Scott Cooper, starring Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shepard.
A steel mill worker is jailed for drunk driving. When he gets out, he finds that his brother is fighting for money. The brother arranges a dangerous fight and disappears afterward. The mill worker searches for his brother.
Stupid hyper-masculinity. Also, just like every other Hollywood movie of the time. There's really nothing more to say. I rate it bad. Don't watch it.

Dancer in the Dark A.K.A. Danser i mørket (2000)

A Danish German Netherlands Italian American British French Swedish Finnish Icelandic Argentinian Norwegian Taiwanese Belgian Musical drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse and Peter Stormare.
A Czech woman has moved to America so that her son can have an operation on his eyes. She is going blind and her son soon will if his eyes are not fixed. A neighbor finds her savings for the operation and steals it. She tries to take it back, but he is accidentally shot in the struggle. She kills him and takes the money as he begs her to do so and the case goes to court.
The whole Golden Heart Trilogy is not equal. This seemed restrained, repressed, whitewashed and censored compared to the other 2 films, lots like Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Rainbow Thief (1990). Most of this was in Dogma 95 style, but the musical numbers had non-diegetic music and tripods for the camera. Bjork is extremely attractive, but her vocal delivery and phrasing seem repetitive, like she wrote 1 song in 1993 and has been repeating it ever since with different lyrics. I like to think that the ending was caused by this, but I won't spoil that too much. Bjork says that Lars shared my view of her appearance and attempted to act on it in a #metoo manner. I didn't like the plot of this as much as the other Golden Heart films and the characters were not as good either. I'm rating it o.k. and in this case, that counts as an insult. You may want to skip this if you're watching Lars von Trier films. His other stuff has all been so much better.

The Idiots A.K.A. Idioterne (1998)

A Danish French Italian Netherlands Spanish Swedish comedy drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Dogme #2 and second film in Lars von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy.
A group of people pretend to be mentally disabled until one of them freaks out for real and another is taken away by a family member.
Amazing! I was laughing through the whole first hour. I know it's currently not politically correct to make fun of retards. In this film, everyone there would have been in on the plan though, so it became more of a situation making fun of people making fun of retards, which makes it o.k., right? There was nudity, sex and foul language. Being Dogme #2, it was saturated in Dogma 95 style. Seeing as this style is documented better elsewhere, I don't feel the need to explain it. The plot began hilariously. I realized the joke at 0:5:00, began laughing at around 0:7:30 and didn't stop until 1:15:47. The characters fit very well because the "leader" was kind of an egomaniac with an assorted group around him. If we can call Karen the main character, she fit her role very well too. I can't wait to watch Dancer in the Dark (2000) and may recommend these films as a series to those who don't mind reading subtitles to see better movies. I rate this best. Watch it!

Only the Lonely (1991)

An American romantic comedy directed by Chris Columbus, starring John Candy, Maureen O'Hara, Ally Sheedy, Kevin Dunn, Anthony Quinn and James Belushi.
A Chicago cop has a bitch mother. He falls in love with a woman and has to choose between the 2 women in his life.
Stupid, vapid and stereotypical. I won't go into this much because an American romantic comedy from 1991 is made in a cookie cutter manner. The only parts that I found interesting were John Candy's nightmare premonitions of his mother's demise. She falls down a manhole and gets in a car wreck, among other things. To get straight to the point, this is just not worth watching. I rate it tolerable because I've seen so much worse. You're probably better off not watching this.

Dear Wendy (2005)

A British Danish French German crime drama directed by Thomas Vinterberg, written by Lars von Trier, starring Bill Pullman.
A group of young people take an interest in guns and marksmanship which gives them confidence that they were lacking. A new member is added, who has had a long and unspoken rivalry with the main character. The new member had been in trouble with the law involving guns and his grandmother was a maid for the main character's parents. Because the old woman is afraid of gangs and hesitates to visit a neighbor, the group escort her on the proposed 2 minute walk.
I haven't mentioned style in a long time, but this has it. when good writing, acting, shooting and editing come together, good style is the results in a product which equals more than the sum of its parts. The plot held my attention and I would say the main characters were dynamic. Pacing felt right (why not bring back another term?). Lots of the camera-work was Dogme 95 style, with lots of handheld long takes. The costumes of the main characters are a point to mention. If these were worn in a Harry Potter style film, they would have been a hokey joke. In a film by such accomplished and independent filmmakers as von Trier and Vinterberg, the outlandish costumes fit and make sense without seeming contrived. Audio was not so great, but I could hear most of it. Diegetic dialogue was obviously going to be low. The narrator's voice was about twice as loud as that and the music was twice as loud as the narration. It's easy to see how layered audio levels like this can get out of hand. I really liked this movie and rate it good. You should probably watch it.

The Family That Walks on All Fours (2006)

A British documentary produced by Jemima Harrison for BBC Two.
Scientists study an inbred family in Turkey whose children are quadrupedal.
So stupid. It all seemed contrived and forced. I would hope that this is not how real scientists act. They acted more like modern sit-com characters than professional anythings. In fact, the video should never have been made. As soon as the children turned out to be inbred and brain damaged, that should preclude any further investigation. I turned it off and am rating it shit. Do not watch!

As Tears Go By A.K.A. 旺角卡門, 旺角卡门, Wàngjiǎo Kǎmén (1988)

A Chinese crime romance directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung and Jacky Cheung.
2 brothers are small-time criminals and one of them falls in love with a cousin. Problems with a gang lead to increased violence.
I think most of this was lost in translation. It doesn't look like Wong Kar-wai work, but the plot definitely fits what little I know of his films. I just have some interesting points to bring up. Hearing "Take My Breath Away" (originally recorded by Berlin and featured on the Top Gun soundtrack) with Chinese vocals was a little odd. There were so many translation mistakes in the subtitles that I could not possibly list them here. One character asks the cousin to give him a phone if something happens. At about 1:03:30 one of the brothers puts a gun into a gangster's pants to blow his dick off (image). I rate this o.k. because it just seemed like an average eastern crime flick to me.

Breaking the Waves (1996)

A Danish British drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard and Udo Kier.
A religious woman in a small town marries a man who works on a nearby oil rig. he is injured at work and returns, but she thinks that her prayer caused his injury because she was praying for his return. He tells her to have sex with someone else and tell him about it, so she begins to fornicate her way through town.
Pretty strange, but that's why I like it. Besides the chapter headings, everything was shot with handheld panavision super35mm cameras. The film was then transferred to digital video and back to film again. This created a surreal effect of heavy outlines and some serious grain or grit. The chapter headings used a tripod. The plot was sparse, but held my interest as the characters developed. Bess and Jan (wife and husband) were dynamic characters, as Bess went crazy and Jan was injured, causing him to go a little crazy too. The only thing that I will mention about audio is that the chapter headings included 1970s mainstream rock music. I used to not like that genre, but have been getting into progressive rock from that time period recently. The pacing was slow to match the sparse plot, but that ended up working out alright. I'm rating this adequate because it's definitely too unique to be just o.k. You may want to watch it. Also, look up Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg's "Dogma/Dogme 95" movement for more information about production style.

Papillon (1973 vs 2017)

1973:
A French American adventure directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, starring Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman and Victor Jory.
2017:
A Maltese Maltenegran Serbian American adventure directed by Michael Noer.
a Frenchman is framed for a murder he did not commit and imprisoned in French Guiana. He tries to escape and is caught twice. His punishment is multiple years of solitary confinement. Between these events, he makes friends with another inmate who was forging financial documents in France.
Typical. This went exactly how I thought it would.
The 1973 film was pretty good. The plot and characters held my attention. The story seemed large and long, but I guess 2.5 hours fits lots in 1973. The camera-work was mostly wide shots and multiple people with backgrounds to solidify location. There was some shot variety, with close ups appropriately used. The audio was reasonably good and I could hear what people were saying. The writing made sense and seemed sincere. I would rate this adequate and say it's worth checking out.
The 2017 film was like a child's crayon drawing of a renaissance masterpiece in comparison. I wanted it to be over when it had barely even started. The characters and plot were clearly based on the 1973 film to the point of the Louis Dega character mimicking Dustin Hoffman's voice. Also, Aaron Guzikowski (2017 writer) did not like the writing of Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (1973 writers) because so much of the plot changed over 44 years. I won't go into specifics, but a major point was the main characters carrying away the body of an executed prisoner instead of capturing a crocodile. The boat, poor village and native village section was all mixed up too. The camera-work was what I expected. New Hollywood's penchant for short edits of close ups was present. There were a few good shots, but not enough to merit identifying them.  As expected as well was the audio. I don't need to describe it anymore at this point. I rate this bad for the reasons listed above.

2046 (2004)

A Chinese romance directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Gong Li, Carina Lau, Chang Chen and Maggie Cheung.
A writer lives in a small hotel and dates women. He is writing a science fiction story about secrets and uses the room number of a woman he met there as a year or place to set his story.
Very pretty, but pretty boring. Apparently, this is the sequel to 2 of Wong Kar-wai's other films which I haven't watched yet because of my alphabetical order. I think that the writing was what did this in for me. The camera-work was absolutely beautiful. Framing, composition and creative angles were all present and top shelf. Depth of field and something I can only term "item stacking" were great. Shots were arranged in a way which put people behind people, in front of doorways, between cutrains, etc. The plot and characters just could not hold my attention. In stark contrast to the last film I watched, Nymphomaniac (2013), this had me hoping for longer than usual credits so that it would just be done. I rate this poor because of unbalanced production that its visual beauty could not save.

Nymphomaniac A.K.A. NYMPH()MANIAC (2013)

A British Danish Belgian French German adventure directed by Lars von Trier, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Willlem Dafoe and Udo Kier.
A man finds a woman injured and lying in an alley. He takes her to his apartment where she tells him about her life.
Beyond amazing. Camera-work and editing blew me away. The plot and characters held my attention the whole 5 and a half hours to the point that I wanted to watch it again as soon as it was done. Speaking of time, make sure to watch the longer version/director's cut. It's worthwhile. This film is not for the squeamish. If graphic depictions of sex and violence make you squeam, don't watch it. Also blasphemy, racism and foul language. More genitals crossed the screen than I'm used to, but that's o.k. for a movie this good. I can't think of anything that would improve this besides better audio editing, but that could be improved in most films. I rate this best. it's a keeper. Watch it!

One Hour Photo (2002)

An American drama thriller directed by Mark Romanek, starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen and Gary Cole.

The man who prints photos at a super store takes too much interest in a family.

To start with, I didn't think this plot was believable. The characters were shallow, except for Robin Williams and he was way out of character. Casting Mork as a lonely stalker is just absurd. The version that I watched was pixelated to the point of looking psychedelic, but it's not worth reviewing the quality of a digital file at this point. The camera-work and editing seemed too "new Hollywood" to me, but that was just a mark of the time. Besides the bad plot, there is nothing to write about thismovie. I rate it poor. You probably should not watch it.

On the Comet A.K.A. Na kometě (1970)

A Czech science fiction directed by Karel Zeman.
A cartographer in the French military is surveying northern Africa when he falls into the sea. A comet passes, carrying away Arabians, French and Spaniards with it. The cartographer meets a beautiful woman and they fall in love as chaos unfolds around them.
So unique! Illustrations from the Jules Verne novel were mixed with live action and animation. There were stop motion dinosaurs, illustrated backdrops and live action sections, sometimes with compositing into the illustrations or illustrations composited into live action. The plot and characters were not all that great, but it was so visually weird that this didn't matter much. Most of the special effects looked like 1920s style because the video was mostly in tinted black and white. If you're looking for something really strange to watch and don't mind reading subtitles, this is a good one. I rate it awesome.

The Bridge (2006)

A British American documentary by Eric Steel.
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco California is a popular suicide destination. Interviews are interspersed with footage of the bridge and jumps.
So slow! If this were a book, it would have half a sentence per page and tons of blank pages between sentences. It seems like Eric there wanted to stretch a 10 minute mini-doc into a feature length film. The interviews weren't all that great, just relatives complaining about their non-conformist child/cousin/sibling/friend who jumped. Then the climax came at the end. The guy with long dark hair who was pacing the bridge through the whole duration executed a remarkable jump. That was the best part. Otherwise, it was painful to watch because of so much B-roll and dead air. I rate this bad because it wasn't bad enough to turn off. You would really be better off watching something that makes better use of time.

On th Road A.K.A. Sur la route (2012)

A French British Brazilian Canadian American drama directed by Walter Salles, starring Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen.
An aspiring writer has an interesting friend. They wander around popping bennies, drinking liquor, sharing sexual encounters with women, speeding when they drive and hitchhiking.
The premise sounds good, right? At least interesting. Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere from there. That was it. Most of it looked good. There were a few too many handheld shots for my taste (hand holding is for romance, not movies). The characters were relatively good. Much more memorable than those from 1980s Chinese kung fu flicks. There was a really good musical performance at 1:40:32. The jazz vocalist onstage is either speaking a foreign language or using nonsense words. That's really all I have to say about this. I rate it o.k. because the subject matter was good, but the plot was seriously lacking.

Old Dogs (2009)

An American comedy directed by Walt Becker, starring Robin Williams, John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Seth Green and Matt Dillon, produced and distributed by Disney.
A man went on vacation with his friend 7 years ago and got married and divorced while there. Now, the mother of his children is going to jail and needs him to take care of them.
The date, the company and the plot combined to make this unwatchable. I turned it off at 29:19 of 1:28:10. Hearing the Disney music and seeing the castle was a mark of quality in like 1975, but time has made it a warning sign of impending doom. I like Robin Williams and John Travolta just fine, but everything else in the film negated any pleasure I would have gained from watching those actors. When they have to care for unruly children in 2009, "them's the brakes". I rate this shit in accordance with my turnoff policy. DO NOT WATCH!

Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980)

An American mystery comedy directed by Joe Camp, starring Chevy Chase, Benji, Jane Seymour, Omar Sharif and Robert Morley.
A detective is hired to protect a woman, but finds her dead. He is killed shortly thereafter and comes back as a dog to solve the murder.
This is why folks are prejudiced against films featuring animals with celebrity voices. It was incredibly trite and vapid. Total trash. Not that it wasn't slightly pleasant to watch, but pleasant trash is still trash. The plot failed to hold my interest and there were unnecessary characters. The video looked alright. It was shot and edited decently. Animals with celebrity voices is for kids, but murder mysteries are for adults. Who was the target audience here? I'm rating this bad because I wish I hadn't watched it.

Oblivion (1994)

An American science fiction western directed by Sam Irvin, starring Andrew Divoff, Julie Newmar, Isaac Hayes and Meg Foster.
An alien criminal is trying to take over a town after he kills the sheriff. The sheriff's son has been prospecting gold and meets a Native American. He saves this man's life and they are told by the undertaker of the town what has happened. The son returns with his new friend, frees the cyborg deputy and fights the criminal.
Notice the images. These little monsters were the best part of the film. On anyone else's blog, you would expect an image of the giant "nightscorp", but not here. The plot was trite, but the characters were likeable. It was all very Full Moon. The sequel, Backlash (1996) is much more difficult to find. I decided to watch the first one and get the sequel if I liked it enough. I don't think that would be worthwhile. I rate this o.k. because it's just another cheesy Full Moon science fiction and there are plenty more of those to watch.