Jacksrevenge

...avant la lettre, of course.

Saw this at an Austrian Short Film Festival at the Schikaneder cinema two days ago. A story which has very much beauty in simplicity in it. A man and a woman from Japan who've known each other a long time ago (probably at the university) meet in Vienna. Talk ensues about how and what they miss about Japan (which is, of course, also the place they grew up before having to leave out into the world and have jobs at place where they feel alienated).

The most fascinating thing about this movie is how so much is said without words, for example when they spend the night together in her apartment, just listening to Japanese music on shared earphones.

Beautiful. See it if you can (it also takes less time than "LiT").

This movie would be fairly interesting, weren't it for Helmut Qualtinger, who gives an excellent show as stubborn, constantly drinking inspector Pokorny. His genius one-liners ("Even in Mühlstadt a human body can only be at one place at the same time") make the film a treat, as long as you can tolerate some overacting (the drunk father of the "suicide" victim serves as an example) and sometimes nervy, but otherwise charming local color (e. g. the beehive police station). The script is also quite intriguing for a TV crime mystery, but the ending is a bit of an anti-climax.

Solid work. (7/10)

I was, like, REALLY interested in this movie.

Ever since I saw 'Interview' on TV, I was fascinated with the moral dilemma of Vampires and its dramatic possibilities. The story on which the movie is based on, is very interesting and offers a possibility of a dramatical, visually powerful Vampire flic.

Well, and after that, most things went wrong.

First of all, the script is BAD. Scenes which could be giving dramatic thrills are scripted to boredom or even TOTALLY OMITTED! Akasha's second awakening, for example, is brought into the story by Marius saying: 'Oh well, yeah, she just woke up, y'know...' This is NOT dramatic. In other moments, the dialogue is so stupid you don't have the slightest idea of what is going on, for example when the part with the Family Tree is 'explained'.

Secondly, there are only two people in this movie which could be called 'actors' (Townsend and Perez) and they, well, 'do their best'. Aaliyah just shows her body and beckons around in her stupid accent and could as well just be replaced with an animated character from Final Fantasy. The rest of the actors are, on the main, forgettable. Marguerite Moreau simply makes you wanna run out of the cinema and does make you think about Lestat's motives: How can he want to spend eternity with this BORING BORING person? The actor quality does the part to the film which is the greatest sin for a movie wanting to have some drama: You don't care about anyone, except maybe for Lestat. Even the beach covered with corpses does only make you feel glad you didn't experience them alive, 'cos they probably would have been bad actors, too.

I gave this movie 5 out of 10 because, well, Townsend tries REALLY hard, and I really liked the music part (Jonathan Davis does a good bit here). Besides, the scene with thousands of fans approaching the concert is stunning. The movie design is also very good.

Well, maybe the next Chronicles movie is made by the right people. I DO hope so.