bimo | Entries tagged with review

Anyone else watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix?

The show is a very smart, atmospherically intense reimagination of both the Robert Wise’s 1963 black and white genre classic The Haunting as well as the original Shirley Jackson novel.

Somewhat sceptical at first whether any modern day TV adaption could pull off the same level of psychological horror and deeply intense fright, I was soon taken in by the effective story telling (seemingly non-chronologic and elliptical, but in fact revealing itself to be perfectly concentric in a dark, twisted dream logic kind of way).

Also, intriguing characters, well-nuanced and coming with fascinating dynamics. (If you are familiar with their Robert Wise versions, names and depictions will be a sheer delight!)

The show’s ensemble cast is as female-dominated as it is superb.

Oh, and then there is that! cameo! Chilling and brilliant! Hell, yes, on so many levels! ;)

Current Mood: awake
Crossposts: https://bimo.livejournal.com/84446.html

Yeah, I know. But BimoDad and I have been watching the various Jurassic Park/ Jurassic World movies together ever since the first one came out back in 1993.Thus, no way we were going to miss this latest installment.

A few mostly spoiler-free observations:

Pure popcorn entertainment and actually great fun, however offering very few surprises since the film displays exactly the same strengths and weaknesses as the previous one.
Cookie cutter characters, but perfectly likeable, or, in case of the villains, properly despicable.
Simply gorgeous dino animation, done in a way that really makes you care for these beasts.
It totally escapes me why Fallen Kingdom’s rather obvious Frankenstein theme (all complete with Gothic mansion, thunder, and discussion of scientific ethics) doesn’t show up in reviews. (I’ve read various ones, none of them cared to mention it.) Fallen Kingdom is Frankenstein, as much as one of its predecessors, The Lost World, was King Kong.
Oh, and I couldn’t help smiling about the scenes showing Chris Pratt’s character raising young Velociraptor Blue. So reminiscent of training Little Jasper. ;)

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: https://bimo.livejournal.com/84128.html

Watching 5.12 Souls of the Departed it occurred to me how strongly the episode seems based on a theme of smoke screens of mirrors.

( All in all: Very Orphic, very fairytale-like and much smarter than it looks at first sight. Rather well-done, show. )

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/75689.html

Yesterday evening Cavendish and I finally grabbed our chance to watch Steven Spielberg's Cold War drama Bridge of Spies. The movie may not be a flawless masterpiece (a little bit of "too much pathos" here, a slightly too stylised characterisation there...), but all in all it turned out an intriguing and memorable viewing experience.

Very well-filmed, in a rather classical style. Well-acted and casted. Tom Hanks is playing Donovan, the chosen US negotiator, in a way that feels rock-solid and palpable, on one hand, yet not entirely free of self-ironic touches on the other. In consequence, his Donovan, while certainly put on a pedestal as the archetypal upright lawyer hero, always manages to stay likable and human.

An impression, which also seems to be strongly supported by the script; most noticeably perhaps in a scene playing in freezing-cold East Berlin where a border-crossing Donovan is forced to hand over his good woolen coat to an East German youth gang.

Also, lots of absurd and delightfully wry humor in other scenes, probably due to the influence of Joel and Ethan Coen.

Current Mood: impressed
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/73541.html

My non-spoilery impression in a nutshell: Viewed and loved, for all its Star Wars-y flair. Heroes, mentors, planets, droids, and Space Nazis. Yup, everything just as it ought to be.

As someone whose focal point has always been Obi-Wan Kenobi (in both original trilogy and prequels alike), I was somewhat worried whether the new characters would manage to intrigue me. But, hey, they did, with flying colours.

( One or two spoilery observations )

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/72828.html

More often than not, I find myself reading two different books parallel at the same time. When I'm not on holiday and thus out of my usual rhythms, there are daytime books, nighttime books, and only very few which fall in between. The respective categories don't seem to have anything to do with a book's genre, content or narrative complexity. King's Doctor Sleep was a nighttime book, for example, but so was also Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall? Daytime. And the way I treat non-fiction books is equally erratic.

The two books I'm reading parallel at the moment, however, couldn't be more different if they tried to.

Nighttime:

Bill Bryson, One Summer in America: 1927

Popular history, strung together somewhat loosely, but all in all a quite intriguing account of the key events and the people which came to shape the collective consciousness of American citizens during the late 1920s.

Daytime:

Robert Gwisdek, Der unsichtbare Apfel (German)

Hitting bookstores (or Amazon, respectively) on March 8th, it seemed quite unavoidable that I ended up finding this inconspicuously looking white little book on my birthday table, right? Debut novel, written by someone who, during the thirty years he has so far spent on this planet, has already been an actor, a songwriter, a dadaist performance artist. So, approach cautiously, right? Especially if you are a fan...

Eternal skeptic that I am, I opened Der unsichtbare Apfel rather hesitatingly, fearing, no almost sure that I would certainly be disappointed. Now, that I am about one hundred pages into the novel, I guess it's safe to say that I'm not. Not by any means at all. Capturing, imaginative (the more surrealist side of "imaginative"), beautiful language. Unsettling. These are the adjectives I would pick to describe it, but if I had to chose a comparison to sum up my subjective reading experience so far I would say: This one feels as if Hans Christian Andersen and Franz Kafka had collaborated to come up with a pre-dreamt version of a movie by David Lynch.

Of course, adjectives and comparisons never do anything, anyone justice. And of course, I better ought to check if my usual pair of glasses haven't been switched for a pair of rose-coloured ones... ;-)

Current Mood: relaxed
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/68055.html

Together with a friend of ours, Cavendish and I went to see Gravity at a nearby multiplex last Friday, 3D, original language version. Spectacular zero g effects, engaging story. Also, the way in which this movie conveys the vastness of space is clearly a thing of awe-inspiring beauty.

However, I must say that I understand the people who loved and enjoyed this movie as much as the people who have dismissed it.

( Things I find problematic about Gravity, cut for spoilers )

Current Mood: relaxed
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/66646.html

One of the movies I would never have seen, If Cavendish hadn't been so interested in viewing it and had sort of dragged me along. I can't help but to feel rather impressed, though, by how much actual, serious and thoughtworthy content this movie transports, apart from the splatter. Interesting comment on power dynamics, rather brilliant use of mythology (classical and modern myths alike), memorable visual imagery.

If one is able to stomach the blood&guts parts, the film is well worth seeing.

Current Mood: impressed
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/61885.html

Leith Passmore, Ulrike Meinhof and the Red Army Faction: Performing Terrorism, Palgrave MacMillan, New York 2011.

Pretty fascinating and at times downright chilling analysis of Ulrike Meinhof's writings, retracing her transition from left-wing journalist into one of Germany's most high-profile terrorists of the early 1970s. As the Amazon.com book description puts it: "Leith Passmore traces Meinhof's struggle to communicate [...]. He examines for the first time the performativity of terrorist acts of language, imagery, and physical violence to reveal how Meinhof made and re-made RAF terrorism."

What seems especially noteworthy besides the highlighting of certain key aspects and tendencies in Meinhof's work, is how Passmore also provides a rather clear account of society's ongoing inability to deal with a biography like Meinhof's and its readiness to write off terrorist acts as individual cases of mental defunction. Just to give you an example from the book's introduction:

As early as 1970, Meinhof's then estranged husband Klaus Rainer Röhl publicly linked the [brain] operation with her slide into terrorism. [In the early 1960s Meinhof had undergone brain surgery, during which a widened blood vessel was treated with a silver clasp]... [Röhl] cited a severe change of personality - a sudden callousness and sexual distance - resulting from the surgery and, potentially causing Meinhof to enter the underground. Shortly after she entered prison, judge Knoblich ordered an examination of her brain based on the possibility that her illness was a contributing factor to her behaviour of the early 1970s. Debate ignited in 2002 when, decades after it had been removed from Meinhof's body and disappeared, her brain was rediscovered and examined for a second time. Both the 1997 and the 2002 examinations were undertaken to find a cause for Meinhof's terrorism in a brain defect.

Current Mood: pensive
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/60499.html

Only just about twenty-five people at special premiere screening of a film at a small arthouse cinema (with both the movie's director and parts of the cast present!) should be bound to indicate something, shouldn't it?

Please feel welcome to choose freely from the following more or less likely options below. More than just one correct answer is possible:

A) This surely isn't the new Hobbit or Justin Bieber movie.
B) Whatever Bimo and Cavendish went to see this weekend at the Astra in Essen was incredibly pointless and boring rubbish. I'm sure everyone (including the poor director) had an absolutely lousy and awkward time.
C) What the audience saw was a smart, witty, well-acted, well-observed comedy, highly entertaining and at times rather endearing. Relaxed and interesting discussion ensued.
D) Obviously this movie was one of those neat little films, which, due to lack of advertising budget will disappear from cinemas far too soon. A clear case of run and try to watch as long as it is shown in a theatre near you.

Well, if you've picked A, C and D, you've chosen wisely, as Dietrich Brüggemann's comedy Drei Zimmer/Küche/Bad is just this. Witty, surprisingly poignant at times and thus well worth seeing. Starting from its basic premise "Eight friends, four seasons, eleven different moving days" both the script and the very fine ensemble cast manage to touch upon the full scale of chaos and complexities that usually come along with moving forwards or backwards in life. Moving in, moving out, searching, finding, regardless whether the need to do so should arise in your mid-twenties or much later.

Current Mood: awake
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/59918.html

Over at Sueddeutsche.de I just stumbled across a review of the latest Spiderman reboot movie that raises quite an interesting point regarding cinema's current state as an artform/ form of cultural expression. Apparently one of the reviewer's main theses is the notion that 21st century cinema, not unlike threatre or opera, is entering a phase of a nearly closed canon, with very few new and innovatove material appearing and a noticeable (perfectly legitimate?) shift happening, basically the shift from creation towards interpretation.

The full article in German

The crucial passage:

Vielleicht denkt man aber auch zu negativ, wenn man sich nun für immer in einer Superhelden-Wiederholungsschleife gefangen sieht. Zwar wird sich an den Realitäten in Hollywood nichts ändern, und der Zyklus der Remakes und Sequels beschleunigt sich eher weiter. Aber dann tritt das Kino womöglich in eine neue Phase ein - in der sich Oper und klassische Musik schon längst befinden.

Könnte der Kanon der Geschichten, die das Publikum wirklich sehen will, nicht auch hier bald abgeschlossen sein? Dann hätte es seine Richtigkeit, dass die Spidey-Symphonie einfach regelmäßig neu eingespielt wird: hier eine innovative Phrasierung, dort ein virtuoser Spezialeffekt - und dann, im zweiten Satz, die berüchtigte Spinnenbiss-Passage in Es-Dur... An solchen Nuancen dürften wir uns dann abarbeiten - und kein Regisseur von Rang käme darum herum, seinen eigenen Spiderman-, Superman-, oder Batman-Zyklus aufzunehmen.

Auch in dieser schönen neuen Filmwelt stünde es jedem frei, sich gelegentlich noch an originale Kreationen zu wagen - solche Werke liefen dann aber unter dem Etikett "Zeitgenössisches Kino" und klängen eher dissonant bis zwölftonal. Einmal im Jahr, vielleicht in Cannes, würden wir sie bewundern, diskutieren und dazu hochsubventionierten Champagner trinken - im sehr kleinen Kreis.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/58257.html

Cavendish and I went to see Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom on Friday, mostly attracted by the movie's hugely impressive cast list including such illustrious names as Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, but with very little to no idea what else to expect.

As it turned out, we might have easily seen one of the finest and intriguing films of 2012. While its basic plotline doesn't account to much more than "Sometime in the mid-1960s, two smitten-with-each-other teenagers on a small New England island run away together while the involved parents and other rescuing parties aren't exactly amused", Moonrise Kingdom presents its viewers with a fascinating microcosm of the surreal and the hilarious, managing to touch upon the light and the funny as well as the sad, touching and sincere.

This almost incredible mixture of poignant and fluff is in large parts carried by a breathtaking script, great imagery, and yes, actors who just know how to highlight their characters' more comic aspects as well as a rather rare sense of personal dignity.

If you should have the opportunity to see this movie while it still runs in theatres, go, see it!

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: http://bimo.livejournal.com/58058.html

I woke up this morning with the idea of writing a lengthier entry on Jane Campion's Keats movie Bright Star (For the interested: the last three years of John Keats' life, seen through the lens of his relationship with Fanny Brawne; a movie typical of Jane Campion as a director insofar as Bright Star's superb visuals, added by a strong focus on the observation of character dynamics make more than up for the film's slow pace. What struck me as most noteworthy was how Campion has managed to transfer the romanticism of Keats poems into essentially quiet but powerful images. Altogether a film well worth seeing, with some very fine actors and quite a bit of costume porn at work there*g*)

Opening my browser window, however, I got somewhat distracted, not only by reading up on the featured Keats poems, but also by the latest edition of

metafandom, featuring the all time discussion classic of of how much cultural literacy fanfiction authors should expect from their audience.

Without going into any details, some of the actually quite sensible and pragmatist answers to that question scare me, mostly because I firmly believe in the importance of broadening our shared cultural horizons and the role that fiction (any fiction, not just "literature") plays as a means of transporting knowledge.

Current Mood: pensive

Last weekend I went to see Grace is Gone, one of my more successful attempts at catching a a quiet little movie while it is still being played on the silver screen. I guess, one cannot even blame theatre managers for pulling non-major, non-blockbuster productions so very quickly, because the audience acceptance turns out so disappointing. If

cavendish had not decided to accompany me, the altogether number of viewers on that Sunday evening would have been three, as there was another couple sitting close to the front row while we had chosen to take seats at the back.

There was a detailed, rather favourable review of Grace in German at Spiegel Online. The film has won/is nominated for several prizes. Music by Clint Eastwood, Sundance Festival audience liked it. An American critic over at Rottentomatoes.com called it: A late entry in last year's parade of war movies that nobody saw, James C. Strouse's "Grace Is Gone" is a beautifully acted and terribly sad film that never makes a case for its own existence.

Despite the mixed judgment (terribly sad, too subdued and slowly paced, too inevitable and painful the ending), her review provides a rather adequate idea of the film itself, and the performances of the actors involved. John Cusack, far from the "cute guy with darker streaks" roles he has played in the past, struck me as particularly impressive in all the helplessness and confusion that he conveys, turning his character into one of those flawed, disturbingly average people that one wants to alternatively slap and hug at the same time.

Current Mood: thoughtful

it was only a matter of days until I headed off,

cavendish in tow, to see Indy IV ...

( Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: random thoughts and impressions )

Current Mood: cheerful

I am currently eating my way through Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos, a rather unsuspicious-looking paperback with a dark, blue-ish cover, showing you starlit skies and the sea. Five-hundred pages, Penguin Popular Science. 'The new Hawking, only better,' The Times review says, more than just a little sensationalist. What it should say, however, to provide a more accurate description is: Beware folks! This one contains physics explained for tv addicts and philosophy geeks. Practically equationless but heavy on abstract wordiness and imaginative examples.

I cannot claim to understand physics, or for that matter anything else that Greene is talking about, on more than just a mere surface level, but it's fascinating to stretch my mind like this and have the workings of space, time or Newton's bucket illustrated with examples from tv land, like Itchy and Scratchy shooting each other with pistols on a fast driving train and Apu watching their duel from the trainstation's platform.

In his introduction to the problems of quantum mechanics, Greene treats his readers to a one and a half page long X-Files vignette about Mulder and Scully arguing over a set of blinking, alien boxes.

Whee!

Current Mood: amused

An interesting but unfortunately exclusively German review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows over at Zeit Online.

( What captured my attention... )

( As for my personal musings on Deathly Hallows )

Current Mood: pensive

Having finished "Human Nature/Family of Blood" I think it's safe to add another item to the list of recurring structural patterns, motifs and themes that

selenak and I came up with a couple of weeks ago.

Early mid-season two parter: The one you can show your imaginary eight-year old with a clear conscience. Alien invasion, for the most part rather action-oriented. Superficial and silly, at least in my opinion.

Late mid-season two parter: Dark, nightmarish stuff. Two hours of breathtaking television, but heavily charged and drawing from a whole pool of subconscious fears that may be either individual or collective.

I can see why half my f-list is in love with HN/FoB. Intriguing premise, touching and complex characterisations. Haunting, strangely beautiful imagery. And last but not least that awe-inducing taste of eternity brought across by the voice over. But still I think I liked "Impossible Planet/Satan Pit" that tiny bit better. Blame it on the beauty of cello music and dying stars, or on all the pacifist indoctrination I received at school. Up to this very day I question the idea of trenches and battlefields as the ultimate test of a person's bravery and true nobleness of character.

The body counts of both this year's and last year's serious mid-season two parter make the 9th Doctor's intial "Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, everybody lives!" appear in a completely new light to me.

Oh, and one random question before I press the send button in the vague hope LJ will let me post this: Did anyone else think the balloon girl looked an awful lot like Jemmy, Princess of Chaos from Neil Gaiman's Sandman: Season of Mists?

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: Simon and Garfunkel, Homeward Bound

So I went to see AWE yesterday, together with

cavendish at the Lichtburg Essen.

( Just a few personal musings and obsevations regarding the movie. Spoilerfree for the most part )

Current Mood: sad, pensive

I'm currently undergoing a "Classic Mystery and Crime" phase, albeit one restricted to a very specific author, the amazing Margery Allingham, who sometimes gets credited as one of the "Four Queens of British Crime" together with Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers.

Perhaps it's Allingham's versatility which makes her stand out as a writer. She is inventive, she is witty, never fails to surprise. Her plots range from classic "Who-Done-It?" over bona fide treasure hunts, romantic melodrams to dark, noirish thrillers. So it's no wonder most people tend to associate Allingham not with her individual novels, but with the enigmatic persona of her favoured hero, upper class sleuth Albert Campion. And if I write enigmatic I mean it, as a great deal of the character's fascinating and at times rather endearing qualities derive from the fact that he always appears to keep the reader at bay.

Solving a large variety of cases, most of them taking place in the English countryside, it is Campion himself who remains the entire book series' largest puzzle. Allingham is wonderful at dropping hints and revealing her hero piece by piece.Background, family, the at times rather screwed-up love life.Over the course of the novels, the character grows and changes. First introduced as a somewhat distant, but otherwise perfectly self-confident adventurer, who hides his razor-sharp mind behind silly jokes, blank expression and affable manner, Campion becomes increasingly affected by the things that happen to him.Gets older, more reluctant, painfully aware of his own failures and isolation.

It's fascinating to witness this transition from formulaic hero to character.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: The Housemartins, Caravan of Love

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Page Summary

Since Halloween is fast approaching
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Smoke Screens and Mirrors: Some Afterthoughts on OuaT 5.12
Bridge of Spies
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
[book note] Bryson, Gwisdek
Gravity
Django Unchained
[Book Note] Ulrike Meinhof and the Red Army Faction: Performing Terrorism
Drei Zimmer/Küche/Bad (film review, German language production)
Superhelden in der Wiederholungsschleife - Interesting "Amazing Spiderman" Review (German)
Moonrise Kingdom
Bright Star
So I've been to the Cinema...
As old fannish flames seldom die...
Brian Greene, The Fabric of Cosmos
As reactions towards Deathly Hallows seem to be rather obligatory these days ;-)
Doctor Who: Patterns and Musings
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Just a few personal impressions
Margery Allingham's Campion Series

December 2025

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Postcards from Oz - AU Edition

Entries tagged with review

Since Halloween is fast approaching

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Smoke Screens and Mirrors: Some Afterthoughts on OuaT 5.12

Bridge of Spies

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

[book note] Bryson, Gwisdek

Gravity

Django Unchained

[Book Note] Ulrike Meinhof and the Red Army Faction: Performing Terrorism

Drei Zimmer/Küche/Bad (film review, German language production)

Superhelden in der Wiederholungsschleife - Interesting "Amazing Spiderman" Review (German)

Moonrise Kingdom

Bright Star

So I've been to the Cinema...

As old fannish flames seldom die...

Brian Greene, The Fabric of Cosmos

As reactions towards Deathly Hallows seem to be rather obligatory these days ;-)

Doctor Who: Patterns and Musings

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Just a few personal impressions

Margery Allingham's Campion Series

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Page Summary

December 2025

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