FloX-2 Reviews (7)

Unknown (I) (2006)

A real beauty! ...much better than expected.

[7/10 · 10 February 2007]

I saw "UNKNOWN" yesterday in a midnight special screening and it was surprisingly good! In deed, this one is a real beauty among so many mystery, psychological thrillers hitting the cinemas in the last years.

This movie is a little bit of "SAW", a little bit of "IDENTITY", a little bit of "RESERVOIR DOGS" spiced with some tiny little pieces of "CUBE" - so far, so good and so anticipating. BUT: in many movies of this kind there is a story with some huge holes in the plot and a final twist at the end which may be unexpected and surprising - but after some minutes you feel a little bit strange about it because the final twist being of some strange coincidence.

"UNKNOWN" is better: the only coincidence you will have to swallow is right in the beginning of the movie, that there is a chemical gas which is strong enough to wipe out the complete memory of five people (including their whole identity!) for some hours, but fails to kill one of them although "death" being one of its side effects.

Under this premise the rest of the story is fully logical and surprisingly clever. And it makes the best out of the fact, that in many scenes the audience is better informed about the real identity of the characters than the characters themselves.

And the end is just stunning: when the final credits hit the screen you have seen many final twists and you know everything about what was going on in the chemical factory, but you do not know all about the motive force of any character. In fact, 24 hours after seeing this movie I still try to find out what is my personal opinion about Jean Jacket and his role in this game.

...and a movie which is worth to think about more than 10 minutes is always worth a watch. Enjoy this ride!!!

Diary of June (2005)

A movie definitely worth a look

[8/10 · 16 August 2006]

Saw this movie at the „Fantasy Film Festival" at Hamburg, Germany, yesterday and I just want to suggest to everybody: if you get the chance to see the movie, just take it!

This movie is not perfect or outstanding, but it is quite an experience to see it, because there are so many differences between this movie and a police thriller made in Germany or the U.S. I mean, most movies dealing with serial killers do it this way: there are one and two good cops dealing with a lot of simple characters, hunting the bad guy and going through a lot of scenes with high gore, while everybody in the audience is asking their self: „Who dunnit?"

This movie is the other way round! At least the last 45 minutes everybody knows who and why committed all the murder, the murders them self are shown very shortly without any real gore and if you expect an unexpected twist at the end – there won't by any! But the thing is: you just do not care! Because in this movie there are so many touching and well drawn characters, plot lines and funny and dramatic scenes, you just do not want this movie to end...

So if you want to see a Korean version of „Silence of the Lambs" or „Red Dragon" - skip this one. If you want to make some gain in movie experience, this one is definitely the one to watch!

Blindes Vertrauen (2005 TV Movie)

How to lose and find love in two days...

[2/10 · 22 November 2005]

Do you remember the old movie question "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days?" Well, at least with this movie we've got an answer to a similar question: it just takes you 3 days to lose a GIRL – as long as you are blind and leader of a commercial agency. But wait, there is still more to come. In between the same three days you can:

1) Buy yourself a guide dog for the blind, complete successfully all the needed training which is normally supposed to take you at least several months,

2) Fall in love with your guide dog trainee, make love to her all night long on the roof top of a skyscraper (who cares about this lousy guide dog training anyway, right?!?), break up with her and then fall in love with her again.

3) Be betrayed by your own brother, your former girlfriend and all of you staff. But hey, that is no problem, too. You can finish a whole new commercial campaign for an Asian sneaker all by your own. Nobody in the audience will remember that one day before (so round about 15 minutes ago) you were even not able to use your new computer with its Braille device. Today is a new day, so let's go and show your brother and it new commercial agency who is the real guy in commercial business! ...and please do not forget, that in between these three days you not only have to break up with your brother, you also have to listen to your sense of a common bond and become friends for lifetime again!

4) Present the audience any tool that was invented in the last decade to help blind people to orientate, to read or to write. I mean, nobody in the audience will notice that you use them all wrong and in incongruous situations – you are blind! That's all they need to know!

All in all this movie is nothing than downright ridiculous. To make a good mini TV-series out of this story encompassing one or two years it would take a very good script, but maybe there would be something in it. To present this story in a time range of less than 72 hours is an affront to any thinking audience.

Creep (I) (2004)

60 incredibly scaring minutes

[7/10 · 4 April 2005]

• SMALL SPOILER HEREIN! -

When I looked at the votes for "Creep" today, I was surprised about so many IMDb-users rating this movie "1". I am wondering: what do people expect of such kind of movie? Are there so many people watching a movie without knowing anything about it?

"Creep" is a HORROR movie and it is a pretty good one! This automatically means: it has a absurd story full of holes, outrageous hazards and simple one-side-characters. So why complain about it? Just take some popcorn and coke, make yourself comfortable in your seat and then... ...enjoy to be scared to death! The first 60 minutes when there is almost nothing else than Kate and a lonely subway station are incredibly scaring. There is suspense and fear in every corner of the screen and you will give some jerks just because of a sudden sound of a blinking neon lamp in the back of you. (In my opinion the sound editor did the best job in this movie.)

When Kate meet her pursuer the quality of the movie drops but it still doesn't become a bad movie. The second part of the movie is not scary at all, but the gore effects are well done and the story is quite well developed. (...as long as you keep in mind that it is a horror movie you are watching and not the Discovery Channel!) So, if you want to make yourself a very, very scaring hour. Just watch the first hour of "Creep" and then leave the cinema or turn of your TV. You know the rest of the story anyway, don't you? The bad guy will die and Kate will be the only survivor. But even if you watch this movie up to its end, you will not be disappointed.

...and if you want to push anxiety to the next level, do what I did after watching this movie: leave the cinema by dark night, go to the next subway station and take the last train home...

Aus der Tiefe des Raumes (2004)

Paints a huge smile on your face!

[8/10 · 28 January 2005]

If you want to spend a evening with a nice, little, funny romance-comedy you would not be disappointed giving this one a try.

If you want to get into nostalgic mood about West Germany in the 60s you will even more like it.

...but if you are crazy about soccer, it is your duty to watch this movie! You will have so much fun watching it and in the end you finally know the „real truth" about one of the greatest German soccer players of all times „Guenther Netzer".

Only thing you should not do is – like almost every time – relay on the trailer. If you have seen the trailer you think this one is going to be a big laugh, scream comedy full of nasty humor and slapstick. But it is not! All big laughs are already included into the trailer. The other 85 minutes of this movie you will have a great time with a huge smile on your face, a small tear of emotion running down your cheek and the warm feeling in your heart, you always feel while listening to the „old stories of yesterday". (And this worked out even for me being born in the 70s and never seeing Netzer playing soccer live.) All in all a fine, uncommon and very special comedy!

The Blind Flyers (2004)

What a beauty!

[9/10 · 3 November 2004]

Wow, what a beauty! This movie is just brilliant: Helmut Dziuba and Bernd Sahling wrote a good script, than Bernd Sahling himself made a good movie out of it and the acting of is simply to be called perfect.

If you want to see a movie in which handicapped people play the major part, but which totally free of false pity and stereotypes, it is definitely this movie you should choose - and even better: because it is a children movie you can watch it with the whole family!

Dziuba and Sahling wrote their story by saying: "All right, our leading roles are blind... ...so what?!? They are 13year-old teenagers in first place!" With this in mind they tell a fascinating story about first love, taking part in a music contest and deep friendship. On the way through this movie you will get to know a lot about living in a German boarding school for the blind and the daily life of blind teenagers, but you will never feel like the director raises his forefinger and wants to teach you a lesson about "blindness".

When doing a movie with handicapped people many directors tell you in interviews all the time, that they "wanted to show, that these people are just normal as you and I". Bernd Sahling does not need to stress this, because he made a normal movie for children - and it is a good one - in the first place with the only little difference, that his leading actors are blind - so what?!?

9 out of 10

Bangkok Dangerous (2000)

A typical Asian: brilliant pictures & scenes, weak story

[6/10 · 25 May 2004]

"Bangkok Dangerous" is a very nice piece of Asian Movie-making - and a typical one as well. The pictures and scenes are brilliant and almost breathtaking, while the story is kind of weak - or at least very straight, simple and without any surprise.

And the story holds a lot of "stupid" things, too: f. e. sometimes our deaf killer almost doesn't understand anything when other persons speak to him very slow and clear, one scene later he gets his next killer-job in the darkest corner of a dark road and he is able to read lips perfectly under this bad light conditions...

But with the Pang Brothers bringing this simple story to life with such great pictures, a lot of good used special effects and many nice-to-watch digital baubles this movie is definitely worth watching.

Sometimes the movie is getting - after my fancy - a little to violent - but hey, this is an Asian movie, so what do you expect, right?

A very good movie, but because of the poor story: 8 out of 10.