Avengers: Endgame (2019)

I should've picked "Shazam!"... Well, not that I really had a choice, just sayin'. I didn't watch any "Avengers" in cinema up to "Endgame". The first was ok-ish, but didn't impress me much, and "Age of Ultron" was... let's just skip it. The surprise arrived with "Infinity War", which finally had a narrative that was actually good, and a bit more complex than what could a 15 year old screenwriter do in a PlayStation break. So, with high hopes, although I was convinced that this is over-hyped, I decided to give it a chance. Call me hater, but it's a worthy candidate to the most wasted 3 hours of my life for this month, even though we're at the beginning.

You know that after "Infinity War" what follows is a "time travel" movie, so that's not a spoiler. You know that the lost team will be back in the end, so no spoilers there. You know that you'll also have Captain Marvel to save the day in the end (well, sort of), so again, no spoile. You know that the finale will have a big battle, where we finally get rid of Thanos and all his kind, so I'm really not spoiling anything. What you don't know is that the reasoning for time travel in "Avengers" is "smarter" than in all Hollywood's history (I'm not the one claiming it), because we're not going back in time to change history - that will wreck the law of physics, and destroy our present. We just need to gather those 6-7 stones in the past, bring them to the present time, make an "undo" for the missing people, and move them back into the past exactly where we took them from - no harm done (they say...). I'm too lazy to start arguing why it would be pretty much the same thing with that bad classic version of time travel. But let's get over this... Let's also get over the finale of "Doctor Strange" (some of the few MCU movies that I really found to be good) where everybody was aware that a stone is called "the time stone" and used it precisely for its time powers. Let's also get over building a time machine, just to realize towards the end of the movie that the one in an abandoned mini-van is perfectly usable (although we don't really use that in the end). Let's also get over the effect of "erasing people" of the magic glove, which one time is random wrt who's spread into dust a la the undeads in GoT (at least that's what we see in the end of "Infinity War"), and one time is not random anymore (at least that's what we see in the end of "Endgame"). And we can also get over other stuff, but I have better things to do than add more to "you're really a hater" :P

It's not a secret for who's bothered to check some stuff on this blog that I'm not a Marvel fan, and generally I don't like superhero movies. There are exceptions. I mentioned one before. Guardians of Galaxy is another example, and actually a decently sized part of the DC Comics universe before getting "Marvelized", which happens lately. I'm not gonna give spoilers on for whom "Endgame" seems to be really the end - that's indeed some of the few unpredictable parts, but I have doubts that Marvel will give up on making money out of the characters that end their story here. It seems to me like a continuous money making machine using thinner and thinner story lines. Again, we have an excessive amount of CGI - somebody should tell Hollywood that 1 minute of VFX in a movie with no VFX is more effective than 30 minutes of continuous VFX - who's still impressed of how fine are rendered the shrapnel particles at the n-th explosion; your brain is effectively saturated at that point to react to this anymore. We also have tearjerking finale (quote from Tony Stark), way too long, which probably appeals to people residing in geographical areas that have less stress in daily life. I've never referred to the cinema public before in a post, but I've read somewhere that in Netherlands there were applause and tears. Around here... let's just say that I wasn't the only one often checking my watch in the last half an hour of the movie. The part that maybe saves what we have here for becoming completely forgettable (really, try in a couple years to describe the action in "Endgame" - I'm curious for how many that would take more than 3 minutes; do a test with "Age of Ultron" now), is the comic side. Indeed, the jokes and all this part are ok, and help a lot on getting through this. The rest... again, call me hater, but I've seen enough movies in my life to place the new top 10 IMDb entry, below my first 30%.

Rating: 3 out of 5 (objectively... if I would be subjective... not even 20 infinity stones could save what we have here)

The Professor and the Madman (2019)

"The Professor and the Madman" probably deserves more than what I'm considering writing, but as for the last holidays, I'm unfortunately pressed with work deadlines these days... Ergo, no time. Long story short: the first volumes of The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), were put together with a consistent help from a retired US Army surgeon, William Chester Minor, institutionalized in a hospice in England after murdering somebody during a crisis of schizophrenic paranoia. The movie basically describes the collaboration between this man and James Murray, the lead editor of the first edition of OED, with all the context of the time, which indeed it's... let's say exotic enough, if not even unbelievable, to deserve a movie.

The story behind the movie, as some review was saying, keeping the proportions, apparently rivals a bit the story of the movie. Again, long story short: Mel Gibson + Farhad Safinia who worked together before in "Apocalypto" and are the authors of this project apparently got into a pretty serious conflict with the production studios, not being very happy with the final result, and seeming avoiding its promotion. Indeed the movie looks a bit unpolished, and probably a director's cut would make it better. It's not really comparable with what else we can find in Gibson's directorial CV + has a bit too much cliche in it, but I definitely wouldn't say it's a bad one.

As I said, it would probably deserve more discussion, but I would stick to just a couple ideas coming out from what's here. Quoting a dialogue between the shrink and the patient: "You think I'm insane?" "Are we not all, to some extent?". Mental sanity is unfortunately something that's probably relative in some proportion, and depending a lot of self management. Despite the horrible association given by placing it above the entry to Auschwitz, "arbeit macht frei" (actually stolen from French from a Swiss entomologist + psychiatrist), escape in work may be a solution for a longer term, when you really enjoy what you're doing and you see a result, but as it comes out from the movie you don't know for how long this will hold. Something certain, is that for short term, some escape from reality is recommended to keep you sane, and around 1900 one of the few variants were the books :) Fortunately now we have more options. ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Company You Keep (2012)

Still no "Shazam!". Recycling old stuff... "The Company You Keep" is a thriller with some real basis. During Vietnam War, US seen some radical anti-war movement, ironically pretty violent, named "The Weathermen", which disintegrated at the end of the '70s. Not without follow-up, a part of its members running from the FBI and remaining hidden. The movie is set sometime around 30 years after, when an ex-activist who was involved in an armed robbery decides to surrender herself. A good opportunity for a local journalist to unveil the past of another former member. The guy is not that happy with the perspective of being charged, especially being a single father, and starts a run having a path that nobody understands. That's pretty much the point of the movie - we're slowly getting to unravel an old story with a scent of soap opera, where the next surprise is sort of predictable at least 5-10 minutes ahead. The movie, or better said "the run", has a charm of its own, a la "The Fugitive". That + the well known cast make the movie watchable. Still, there's something missing... Don't know what exactly, and I don't have time for a more thorough analysis :)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Werk ohne Autor (Never Look Away) (2018)

I wanted to go and see "Shazam!" this week, but I kept postponing from one day to the other until I failed reaching the cinema. Maybe it was a good thing. Because I got to see "Werk ohne Autor" aka "Never Look Away" instead.

The movie lasts 3 hours. I watched it in two sessions, because I didn't know what to expect. I would recommend though to try this in one piece. It doesn't make you check your watch, but the second half is much more... let's say calm, compared to the first part. And it's probably meant to be that way. The story starts sometime around 1937, in Eastern Germany, close to Dresden, and follows up the life of a young painter since he's 5 years old up to around the time he gets to 30. The first part that gets through the Nazi period and the war is pretty hard to watch. Not in the sense of bullets and blood, but for the drama and despair (no irony there). I don't want to reveal much more besides the trailer, because it will reduce the effect the movie will have on you. All I can say is that we see the young Kurt Barnert surviving the war, starting an artistic career under the communist regime in DDR, marrying the daughter of his arch-enemy (who he doesn't know he's his arch-enemy), illegally escaping to the West and resuming his studies there, and finally apparently finding success as a painter. Trust me, I didn't tell you anything. Watch the movie.

It's the third movie directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, after "Das Leben der Anderen" and (the less fortunate) "The Tourist". For who has seen the first, probably it doesn't need other recommendation than saying that we have a comeback after the second. You can feel the same vibe here. There are though some differences. I'll start with what's less important, although it is... the camera work (Caleb Deschanel) is excellent, same for the score, and for the casting (where we have common names with "Das Leben der Anderen", but still I think this one's a bit better). More significant it's the message sent. As far as I remember "Das Leben der Anderen" didn't end that well, but it had a sort of a... closure, wrap up, whatever. Here the ending is more open (and again I didn't say anything). For this, subjectively, I'd vote for "Das Leben der Anderen". On the other hand, there are some things in the movie we have here, you don't get until the end credits start rolling. Like the fact that it's actually much more deep (or your mind is gone... either might work). For instance, until the last 3 minutes I thought that the marketing title in English fits better for what happened there than the German original one. It's actually more catchy "never look away" than "work without author" :) Until the last 3 minutes, when you can give an interpretation for all you've watched - life in general - as a "work" which in the ending stage... it doesn't really have an author :) Maybe a bit of karma. But that you don't see. It's just there for some paybacks you might not even know about. I still didn't say anything ;) Watch the movie.

Rating: 4 out of 5 ( I'm subjective - multiple reasons - probably deserves much more :) )

The Escapist (2008)

It's late, so this will be a quick one... "The Escapist" is probably the best "prison escape" movie I've watched since "Shawshank Redemption", keeping the proportions. Only the cast is directly comparable. The story is, however, far from the complex construction in "Shawshank", but including enough drama to get some distance also from the light area of "Escape Plan", "Escape from Alcatraz", "The Great Escape" or other "escapes" (despite the title).

Frank Perry is an old convict who one day gets a new cell mate, much younger, and with him also a letter announcing that his daughter is not in the best condition. So, he decides he should pay her a visit. Only that he needs to recruit a team for this endeavor + not letting it being found out by who makes the law around the prison. Stuff that becomes more and more difficult as the group that wants outside grows...

We have a very tiny production budget, but a big time casting, a very appropriate score and an ending twist that's not totally credible, but it makes the escape more credible. I could start a long talk about the illusory light at the end of the tunnel, but as I said, it's late and already this entry risks not to be a quick one anymore ;)...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5