Review: Woyzeck

Meet Franz Woyzeck.

You think YOU've got it bad? Try being Woyzeck for a day. He's a grunt in an indeterminate mid-1800s European army—I assume German, but he could be German-French in the same sense that most movie Romans are British-Roman. He's being cuckolded by his young wife (who looks like Jewel Staite with a crushed spirit) and the high-school-quarterback-like drum major. He's also a human guinea pig for an ambitious scientist who's been feeding him nothing but peas, and who rewards him with much-needed cash every time he behaves crazily.

Naturally, therefore, Woyzeck's descending into insanity, and just as naturally, there's no going back…since this is a Werner Herzog film.

Review: The Grandmaster

Here's how little I knew about Ip Man going into The Grandmaster, the latest of many biopics about him: when I saw the Netflix Instant cover art for the film Ip Man, with the title in all caps, I guessed that it was a wry mockumentary about a superhero charged with enforcing copyrights by going after internet pirates around the world.

Of course, Ip Man was in fact a legendary Chinese martial artist (and Bruce Lee's teacher). And as The Grandmaster unfolded, I began to feel that it may be precisely the worst way to start learning about Ip Man. Partly, this is because the movie really should have been called The Grandmaster's Girlfriend.

Review: The Lives of Others

There must be some cosmic significance to the fact that Netflix sent me The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) just in time for me to watch it late yesterday, around the time that the latest, and gobsmackingest, NSA revelations came to light. It's just as well that I wasn't aware of the latter until this morning, otherwise I would've been curled up and sobbing midway through the movie.

The Lives of Others is an absolutely stellar drama and a good bit of evidence for fancy-pants cinema aesthetes to employ when making the argument (as they must at least want to from time to time) that foreign films are mostly better than American films. It's about the Stasi—so we're not exactly talking about light viewing. (Oh man am I glad I didn't put off watching it. Never coulda got through it tonight.)

Review: Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

I recently found myself in the mood for a "ninja movie," and while Shinobi: Heart Under Blade does have ninjas, and is a movie, it wasn't quite what I had in mind. Next time maybe I'll do more research.

Not that Heart Under Blade is bad or anything. But I'd hoped for more of a "ninjas doing badass shit to non-ninja mooks" kind of movie, rather than "ninja clan vs. ninja clan, but with lots of talking and romance-y moping, and also they're superhuman." That said, if you're in the mood for the latter, look no further.

The Netflix description nails it for once, describing this film as Romeo and Juliet meets the X-Men. The lead characters, Gennosuke and Oboro, are the star-crossed lovers (and yes, they use that phrase a couple of times, just in case the influence is unclear). They belong to rival ninja clans populated by a host of bizarre characters, including a Wolverine analogue with rapid healing, a male Mystique analogue, a poisonous Rogue analogue, and Sleeve Guy—whose power is telekinetic control over the fibers in his sleeves. (I'm not enough of a comic book nerd to know the relevant X-Man for Sleeve Guy.)

Review: Headhunters

Too many thrillers just aren't very thrilling. Usually it's because they rely on big action setpieces, cheap plot devices, or Morgan Freeman to twist our arms into caring about what's happening, and as a result we don't care enough.

In the first half-hour or so of Headhunters, a stylish Norwegian thriller, I found myself reflecting on this, poised as I was quite close to the edge of my seat. "Here is a protagonist who, while clearly competent, isn't especially likable, and yet I care about what's happening," I said to myself, "not to mention what is sure to happen when the shit hits the fan. I wonder why I'm so engrossed, when so many similar films have failed to engage me much."

Review: Iron Sky

When it comes to Nazis-on-the-Moon movies, I can't finish that sentence.

Iron Sky involves a colony of Moon Nazis who get discovered by near-future astronauts, capturing one and accelerating their Earth invasion plans as a result of the encounter. They are opposed by the U.S. president (an unnamed Sarah Palin analogue), her campaign manager, the captured astronaut (he escapes—not a huge spoiler), and the "nice Nazi," whose existence is again not much of a spoiler.