I Can't Eat This

Archive for the ‘Film’ Category

Hi! I’m back after a while of….??? Whatever!

I watched Transsiberian, yesterday. A Film co-written and directed by Brad Anderson, the guy who brought us the great Machinist.

The plot is mostly set on the transsiberian railway. Starred by Woody Harrelson (in a very untypical role), Ben Kingsley (this man is really a chameleon, as a Russian narcotics detective), Thomas Kretschmann (in a role where he has no full line to speak!), Emily Mortimer (as Woody’s wife), Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega (co-passengers in Woody’s and Emily’s cabin).

The film starts with Grinko (Kingsley) coming to a crime scene on a little Russian transporter ship. In about a short time you can figure out that the whole thing got something to do with smuggling drugs. Grinko tells the other policemen that he has to go on a business trip now and leaves the scene.

CUT

Now Jessie (Mortimer) and Roy (Harrelson) are introduced. We see them at a closing event of a social project in China, where they took part in. Then they’re heading back to the US, but not by plane, no. Roy wants to ride by the transsiberian railway. He has a weakness for trains, so this is some kind of climax in his personal experience. Jessie looks like she finds this idea so-so. One or two days later – the trip on the transsiberian railway from Beijing to Moscow lasts five days and six nights – their cabin-mates Abby (Mara) and Carlos (Noriega) join them, claiming they have been teaching English in Japan. If it is so or not, please figure out by yourself. (ssshhhh….Carlos is such a smeary guy, I didn’t believe him from the first second.)

I know, this is a very rough introduction, but I don’t want to get into detail too much.
Just one or two things more to tell: Everyone of the six persons has got a past, she/he don’t really want to share with the others. Most of the things happen turn out to something different. Anderson knows how to build up suspense. If you’ve seen The Machinist you know what I mean. If not, do it! As soon as possible! And then, or before that, watch Transsiberian.

This is not a Hollywood movie. Like The Machinist, which was produced and filmed in Spain, Transsiberian is an European production. This time realised by German, Spanish, Latvian and British filmsponsors. And that’s more than ok. The film has such a dry and somekind of documentary look, you don’t expect and will never get from Hollywood.

Anderson used his own experience from 1988 for writing the script. He studied Russian language and to deepen his knowledge about land, language and people he took a trip on the Transsib. More about to hear and see in the making-of included on the DVD.

Transsiberian on imdb.com
The Machinist on imdb.com

Why, oh why did I do this?

My 12-yr old daughter wanted to take a look at the so popular teenie-vampire-love-drama. So me, my wife and two of my daughters (12 and 18) decided to waste one whole evening completely:

We did watch Twilight and New Moon one after another.
As I was afraid, that both movies would bore us to death, I set up some rules:

1. No fast forward
2. Noone leaves the room before the movie is paused
3. No sleeping whatsoever
4. Noone looks at walls or ceiling instead of watching the screen
5. Audible or visible commentaries by the audience allowed

Just to calm you down: We all survived!

So I spent over 3 hours watching a pretended 17-year old girl leaving her mouth half open most of the time.
What’s supposed to look like passion, devotion, despair or dejection becomes looking totally gaga and like she isn’t able to count to three. Next question: What kind of vampire is that? Standing around, hang his head for 3/4 of the first movie. Maybe I cannot understand how depressive it is to be a vampire nowadays. Or how attractive someone can be, who isn’t able to form just one complete sentence. Then you can see the powder on it’s face, that makes him so pale and let him look like a vampire so much! What a poor-done make-up job! That guy is definetely NO vampire to me (did you notice he even has no fangs?)

In my world vampires have to be like Christopher Lee, the ones from “Fearless Vampire Killers“, Francis Ford Coppola‘s “Dracula“, and F.W.Murnau‘s “Nosferatu“. The latter two make us really believe that they suffer from being a vampire!

What else can I remember? First movie: Girl and vampire sitting or standing around, NOT looking at each other. Nice vegetarian vampire family (how dumb is that?). Bad other vampires, one of them has to be killed by the “good” ones later. Slightly depressive father of girl.
Second movie: Vampires must leave town. Vampire leaves girl. Girl meets werewolfe. Girl does dangerous things to be warned by vampire ex-boyfriend. Werewolves fight the two left bad vampires of first movie. Vampire fights werewolf. Girl wants to be a vampire. Vampire wants to die, because he can’t be in love with girl. Girl wants peace between vampires and werewolfes. Hush-hush CGI werewolves (Ask Rick Baker the next time. He’s responsible for the creature design of John Landis‘ “An American Werewolf in London“).

Oh, what a pile of shit!

The big mistake made here is that the author (or the filmmaker, I don’t care) tries to mix fantasy – what else are vampires and werewolves? – with reality (e.g. depressed teenagers) and fails! Next mistake: Too Long. Definitely too long. The ideal length for the first part would be about 30 min., for the second one about 45 min.
But reality looks different to me: Twilight – 121 min., New Moon – 130 min.
That made me yawn, made me dither around on the couch.

I will watch part 3 and 4, too!

Do you ever wanted to know where the name of this blog comes from? Sure you do!

“I can’t eat this.” is a line spoken by Mr. Lovebucket in the film “Mr. Jolly lives next door” which is a part of an english comedy series called “The Comic Strip“, screened in the 1980s.

As I am not living in the UK I did not knew this series until an acquaintance brought this video-cassette someone taped for him in England. So we gathered together turned on the tube and I could not believe what I saw: I knew Monty Python and loved them (I still do) for their anarchistic, macabre, silly humor, but what the guys from The Comic Strip did here was more absurd, more outragous and more silly.

Some nice stills from the movie at the estonian full-metal-metsavana

If you wanna watch the whole thing, do it here: Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door

Sorry for linking you to youtoobe, but they don’t allow to embed that video.
The whole series was issued on DVD by BBC UK. I think you’ll get it from amazon or elsewhere.