Recent movies

Since my TV-summer pretty much revolves around English murder mysteries, I haven't been watching all that many movies lately. But here they are, some of them, graded on the Pia-scale of 1-5 (5 being superb, can't get any better);

* Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School - kind of sweet, prosaic story about destany, love and ballroom dancing. 3

* Om jag vänder mig om - If I turn around - a really great Swedish, award winning drama about love and lies, described in a very prosaic and easy to relate to way. I so recommend! 4

* Out of time - yes I like Denzel Washington. A lot. But he doesn't always appear in the best of movies unfortunately. And for me the only enjoyable thing in this movie is sort of the fact that it takes place in Florida... Other than that, boring, ridiculously foreseeable crap. -2

* Alfie - I did see the original version with Michael Caine years ago, don't remember a thing about it. Won't remember a thing about this new version with Jude Law either. Stylish, haphazardly made, non-memorable thing to pass some time. The whole movie I kept waiting, and waiting, for something that would actually grab me. In vain. 2

* Girl next door - seen that kind of plot tooo many times over the years, implemented in far better ways, *yawn* 2

* Rancid - Once upon a time this Swedish director still went by his real name Joakim Ersgård and made a decent horror movie called Besökarna/The Visitors about a haunted house. A movie in which his brother Patrik also played a part.

These brothers have since moved to Hollywood, start making movies together and changed their names to Jack and Patrick Ersgard - only that silly changing of the names is enough to break down in laughter - but the real clinch to the story is the fact that they make such unbelievably lousy, untalented movies they bring a whole new dimension to the genre of turkey movies. One of life's great mystery might be how anyone could possibly want to finance their movies...

The only original thing about this movie Rancid is its name. The rest consists of a crappy story, even worse acting - why do they use Swedish actors, who aren't half bad when playing decent parts in Swedish movies, in annoying supporting roles? Trying to, but to very convincingly, speaking English with an American, tough-guy-accent... The script is theatrical and strained, and the whole thing just makes you shiver in shame. Mark: embarrassingly worthless

* The Ladykillers - saw the original version with Alec Guinness years ago, remember I enjoyed it. Can't say the same about this hotchpotch though. Whatever was that red cat thinking appearing in this shoddy movie? I guess it must have been a question of the right amount of money, or cans of tuna...

The only thing I enjoyed about this movie was the view overlooking the river and the garbage barge scenes - mark: the garbage barge is the only place completely befitting for this movie, 1

* Scenes of the Crime - average, good actors, -3

* A Guy Thing - pretty entertaining for the moment, 3

* Down with Love - thoroughly entertaining, stylish and witty, great actors. I so enjoyed seeing Ewan McGregor like the first time I saw him in the great TV-series Lipstick on Your Collar. 4

* Le pacte des loups - Brotherhood of the Wolf - with a statement of "the best movie I've ever seen" from a well-known movie-critic, it was really interesting to see what kind of movie it would turn out to be. Well, far from being on the top 100 top list in my book, I quite enjoyed it.

It was beautifully filmed, with gorgeous costumes and an absolutely wonderful soundtrack. A different story about good versus evil in 18th century France. But still, a bit too long, affected, kind of scratching on the surface, and way too many wimpish fighting scenes - 3

* Beyond Borders - there were a few really gripping scenes in this otherwise rather skin-deep movie, about a very serious subject. And there is such a thing as too much lips larger than the TV-screen... 2

* Frequency - me liked, a lot! Different, non-foreseeable supernatural thriller/drama with good actors. 4

* Moonlight Mile - Dustin Hoffman shines, in this both sad and fun drama about coping with loss. Susan Sarandon and Jake Gyllenhaal aren't too bad either. But still, amongst all this heartache, my favourite scene is definitely the last one with cat and dog in the car's backseat. The expression on the dog's face is just priceless... 3

* Solaris - dreamy, gloomy, slowly moving forward, or not, I still kind of liked it, the sentiment, the dialogue - and not only because major eye candy George Clooney, which also happens to be a great and versatile actor, played the main role - 3