Antichrist: Chaos Reigns at the Cannes Filmfestival 2009 (2009) by Michael Sandager - (3/10)

8 minute short, showing Lars von Trier, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe walking around from press conference to press conferences at the day of the premier of Antichrist at the 2009 Cannes Filmfestival. It is very short, mostly shows them walking and not the interviews themselves, there are some brief moments from the movie itself and the whole thing is set to the same music as the movie. Only fun moment was when an interviewer demanded that Lars von Trier justifies why he made this movie. Otherwise it is a rather pointless.

Million Dollar Baby (2004) by Clint Eastwood - (3/10)

Clint Eastwood has been directing movies for almost 40 years now but it seems like until recently – last decade or so – not many people noticed this fact nor did they care all that much despite him being awarded the Oscar for best Director in 1992 for The Unforgiven. The producers must love him, he never goes over schedule or over budget as a director, often even stays below. Now he seems to become one of the worlds best known directors, not bad considering that he is 80 now. Million Dollar Baby came in the wake of the critically very successful Mystic River and was bound to attract a lot of attention. Million Dollar Baby got the same amount of critical praise and financial success. To be honest, I was not impressed for it. The story is too stereotypical, standard and the ending is overtly melodramatic, meant to make people feel. I wasn’t impressed with neither Clint Eastwood’s or Hilary Swank’s acting. Morgan Freeman is always fun to see but he wasn't doing anything that he hasn't done a million times before. The whole thing is just emotional blackmail, many people responded well. Perhaps all movies are emotional blackmail but this one was a bit too much. If you do not care, people might think that you have no human emotions. The whole thing is just emotional blackmail and nothing more. I would recommend you to watch The Wrestler by Darren Aronofsky instead.

V for Vendetta (2005) by James McTeigue – (3/10)

I might be biased because I admire the source material for this but they really did turn something that was excellent, well thought out and provoking into something so terribly pedestrian. It might be because “V for Vendetta” was bound to become something entirely different in the current political climate, the fact that Margaret Thatcher was in charge back when the original was written should be kept in mind whilst reading the original. Anyway I just feel like they somehow managed to destroy everything that made the original worthwhile, they really sucked the life of it. The Matrix-like fights at the end of the movie were a bit nauseating. I would definitely recommend the original over this crap any day, even better go read the “Watchmen” comic, that one is a masterpiece. I think that it is safe to say that the first Matrix movie was probably the only worthwhile thing that the Wachowski brothers are ever going to be involved in. I can not blame Alan Moore for hating any attempts at filming his work, this is despicable. Probably the only good thing about this movie was Stephen Fry who is always a joy to watch. It could have been worse but that is hardly a good criteria to judge a movie by.

Psycho (1998) by Gus Van Sant – (3/10)

Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho is one of the most puzzling movies ever made because it is a shot-for-shot remake of what is often considered to be a masterpiece by many. Why was this made is the first question that almost anyone will ask. I assume that such a project can only be explained by an extreme admiration for the original by the maker. Maybe it was a way of finding out, just how Hitchcock had made the original? The thing that is most interesting about this movie is just how boring it is. This is not just because everyone who saw this was already familiar with the original. I saw this one before I saw the original. This is interesting because it shows that what makes movies interesting or brilliant is something that cannot be quite captured, the editing, the shots, dialogue, story,.. almost everything is identical in both version and yet one version is head and shoulders above the other one.

Elephant (2003) by Gus Van Sant – (3/10)

I suppose that both the making this movie as well as its critical acclaim (Palm d’Or winner) made sense in the political and cultural climate at the time. Any movie portraying or addressing the Columbine High School massacre would have made an impact. It never explicitly states that it is about that particular shooting but I think that it is pretty safe to assume that it was.

I personally found the whole thing to be incredibly dull, pointless and a stupid attempt at being intellectual and insightful. An interesting movie could have been made about this subject matter, to be honest it is surprising how dull this movie actually is given the subject matter. For whatever reason, Gus Van Sant ignored all the potentially interesting things about his subject matter and just decided to make shots that he thought that were artistic or clever. This is not film making, this is masturbation. From what I have been hearing this seems to be Gus Van Sant’s style, maybe I just don’t get it.