.. Blog Vacation ..

... or more exactly an interruption caused by the traveling that I have scheduled in the following period :) I unfortunately I didn't manage to find out yet how to dilate the time (it's on the list, don't worry :P ); but I promise that I'll return with something that deserves watching ;) unfortunately I don't have time to write about it at this hour, but as usually, after 29 July, "I'll be back" :D ( & I'll try my best to make the waiting worth ;) .. well .. in case there will be somebody "waiting" :)) )

The Grey (2011)

I'm caught again by the end of the week without many options for the blog, so I must deal with it by writing about something that's not actually very good. However, since the IMDb rating for "The Grey" seems decent (actually above what I would give) I said that maybe it fits as an option for today ...

The movie is somewhere in the survival adventure/thriller genre on a close subject line with "Jaws", "Anaconda", etc. This, if you read the synopsis. After you see it from start to finish though, it's hard to put it near the mentioned. The reasons are many and diverse ... But, let's start with the story: we have a plane transporting several workers from an oil platform in Alaska to the inner part of the continent in the middle of the winter. The plane crashes and the the result is seven survivors struggling to find somebody in order not to get frozen to death. The problem of the cold though, gets quickly secondary, after the men find themselves aggressively harassed by a wolf pack. As usual, I won't get further than the context, but anyway ... there is not much left to be told.

I didn't check but I assume that "The Grey" is rated R. Besides the fact that the movie is quite hard to watch, I guess that "restricted" fits here also more particularly to other situations in which watching the movie won't probably be a very pleasant experience: from being an animal lover (especially of dogs) up to having a flight scheduled nearly + others. Anyway, leaving this aside, I could say that the hard part of the movie is also the good part. And the one making the difference as least commercially than others - "Anaconda" again as a negative example here. And this happens due to the cinematography and especially editing that contributes to the atmosphere a lot. Unlike other titles, the movie does not follow the idea of making a score at the box-office from the abundance of bloody scenes (although the present ones get quite rough). After all this is probably the reason why it cannot be regarded as a horror (although it's not very far). But if the cinematography and editing are the good parts .. and I think I started in other direction, maybe it would be the case to come back to the original idea ...

Maybe it's me, but lately it seems I very often have the same problem .. again I think we have something that takes itself too seriously ... Leaving apart the fact that the wolf pack behavior seems a bit unrealistic, although I'm not an expert in wildlife, my major problem is with the script. After the first ten minutes you already know that what you have in front is not the usual "Piranha 3D" stuff. But after this the situation slowly changes .. You get more & more melodramatic background stories of the characters, classic crisis speeches, the usual "one by one .. who dies next" horror theme. To conclude, it slowly gets too Hollywoodish, and the bad part is that it tries to hide that .. = in the end I was left with the editing as the "something else" factor. Even the soundtrack that was nice, and a bit known, I confirmed myself after that is partially reused from "Ink". Therefore ...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Iron Sky (2012)

Sorry for the delay, but I wasn't able to post my entry last week, although I had it in my head. So I'll be back with the following too soon. For the moment "Iron Sky" or adapted freely "How to launch an extraterrestrial invasion with a smartphone" is a sci-fi satire/parody, with a budget a bit bigger than the usual indie. Partially supported through crowd funding, the movie is a German-Finnish-Australian production. The subject: The return of the nazi .. from outer space .. or more exactly from the dark side of the Moon :)

I guess I've already summarized the story above, and since I'm delayed already I won't get any longer. The movie is .. to compare to something having an element in common, as credible as "Inglorious Basterds" (keeping the proportions). There are holes in the script, and other issues. But ... again, unlike for instance "Prometheus" from last week, in this case we have something not taking itself much into serious. On the good side, we have also some other stuff like the score that varies from blues pieces to an arrangement foe Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", starting with a arrangementcazul de fata avem ceva ce nu se ia prea in serios. In plus, avem cateva puncte de remarcat incepand cu partea de coloana sonora care merge de la cateva blues-uri pana la un aranjament pentru Ride of the Valkyries de Wagner, excellent synced with the movie scenes. The FX have a couple of glitches but overall are to be appreciated given the movie budget (altogether with the production design and the other related stuff). The actors, although I didn't know anybody besides Udo Kier, surprised me in a very pleasant way. And finally .. the parody scenes .. which might have been more, but what's striking is the well-known Hitler scene from "Untergang" (the clip heavily used with alternate subtitles on YouTube).

In the end I have to admit that the movie looks more like a B series one, but it's on top on its category :) It might not be much, but deserves the time, it's fun, witty, and ... subjectively speaking I've placed Julia Dietze on the list to watch for in the future ;)

Rating: 3 out of 5