Martin Geisler Online

I went to see Pearl Harbor the other day. It was a good film, but it was more about love than about war. There’s nothing wrong with than — I had just been expecting a little more about the war. Instead of being a movie primarily about the attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, it was a film about a romance that happened to take place at that time, December 1941.

The scenes with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are great. There’s some nice flying action in the film. It’s just a shame that they’ve made so many mistakes in the film. Take a look at this page to see a list of the embarrassing mistakes.

But despite the errors in the film, it’s still a good film. It was long — about three hours, and it covers a lot of ground, starting with the Battle of Britain, moving on to the Japanese attack, and ending with the Doolittle Raid. If you don’t like these American movies about their heroic soldiers, then don’t bother seeing this movie. And, by the way, all the girls in the theater was weeping at the end of the movie — I’ve never seen that before…

Another film I’ve seen recently is Thirteen Days. I bought in on DVD yesterday. The film describes the Cuban Missile Crises in 1962 where the world was on the brink of a nuclear war. This film is about the crisis, and is not a love-story. The film shows how the Kennedy brothers were under a great press from the military to issue the orders for an airstrike against the missiles in Cuba. In the film we follow Kenny O’Donnell (Kevin Costner) who was one of JFK’s most trusted advisors. That gives us an in-side view of the conflict.

As we’re only allowed to see what the Kennedy brothers saw, the crisis is gradually built up until we reach the climax where the Americans decide to trust the back-channel contact that have approached them.

I likes the film a lot, perhaps because we’ve been studying the crisis in our History class. By seeing it on film it suddenly comes alive in a new way. And it’s also a much more correct film than Pearl Harbor, just take a look here to see for yourself. As I’ve bought it on DVD I had a chance to hear the producers talk about the film. They said that many of the cars, the photographs, etc used in the film is in fact the original objects. That’s pretty impressive.

Last night I saw three very cool DVDs: “Me, My and Irene”, “Scary Movie” and “The Gladiator”. René had arranged this DVD-watching-event, because he has just the right equiptment for the job. When you’re used to normal stereo, then it’s quite an experience to see the films with Dolby Digital.

So, I’ve been really tired today — I went to bed about 5:00 am.

I saw both film last weekend, and figured that I might as well write a bit about them.

I had already seen Mission to Mars in the theaters, so I knew that it was a very good film. It tells the story about how the first visit by humans on Mars goes terrible wrong. The rescue-crew also gets it’s share of problems, but the do make the trip (at least most of them does).

On Mars, they go out to investigate a strange object, that has killed all but one of the members of the first mission. In the end of the film, they solve several of the greatest questions in life, such as the true origin of Man — a very nice ending in my opinion.

It’s also very nice to see a good film, with new actors. I didn’t know any of the actors beforehand (and one of them, Connie Nielsen, is even a Dane :-). But the all played excellent.

I’m glad that I didn’t pay to see The Perfect Storm in theaters. It’s kind of a pointless story about some fishermen, who sail directly into the worst weather ever. Stupid — they all die in the end.

The first half of the film tries to tell a sad story about marries that have gone wrong. Nothing really happens, we just hear and see glimpses of the mens history. Then in the second half, they have sailed out to catch “shit-load of fish.” But when they finally catch the fish, they’re out of ice to cool them. With the storm coming, they now have the choice between dumping the fish and sailing the long way home, or try to sail right through the storm.

I don’t have to say, that they choose the last option, and we then spend the rest of the film waiting for them to be rescued. But a 100 feet wave sends the boat to the bottom of the ocean, and George Clooney stays aboard.

Wow! What a great movie! I’ve just been in the cinema and seen The Gladiator — and I liked it very much.

The plot revolves around the great Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe) who it betrayed by Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and becomes a slave. He is then trained to be a gladiator, but being a great warrior already, he meets little resistance on his way to Coliseum in Rome. Because he is such a good fighter, the crow is very pleased with him. The Emperor had to decide whether a gladiator should live or die, and because Maximus has become so popular, Commodus can’t just turn his thumb down and get Maximus out of the way. But he tries, and Maximus is helped by Commodus’ own sister, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen — a Dane :-)

There’s a lot of different things in this film that makes it great. First there’s the battle-scenes — and there’s many of them. They are all very brutal, the cutting is fast and you makes you kind of confused. That just help to emphasizes the chaos that rages on a battlefield. But although the pace is fast, the choreography is very good — they move and fight in a very spectacular way, using all sorts of weapons.

Later when we see Rome, you’ll notice how beautiful it has been recreated. The Coliseum is just so big! You really get to see Rome as it properly looked at it’s greatest. One cant help but marvel when you think about the sheer size of the city — 2,000 years ago they had a fully functional city with many of the things we have in a modern city.

There’s also scenes without the constant sound of swords clashing together. Scenes where the actors show their emotions, and are very good at it. The film is also about things like honor and justness. Maximus possesses all these virtues, whereas Commodus doesn’t (of cause :-)

It’s a long movie — about two and a half hours — but it’s well worth it. Go see for yourself.