Fantastic Beasts and where to find them (3 Stars)

I avoided this film when it was shown in the cinemas two years ago. My friends in England warned me against, telling me things like "It's not as good as Harry Potter". Today I spontaneously decided to watch it at last after it popped up as a Netflix recommendation.

I can see what my friends mean. What stood out in the Harry Potter films – I never read the books – was the complexity of the plot. So many interesting stories were interwoven into one another. In fact, I found the films too complex for younger children, but a friend of mine with a young daughter contradicted me. Her daughter was nine when the first film was released, and she sat on the edge of her seat throughout the film. Needless to say, she returned to watch all of the sequels.

I wonder if young children were just as enthralled by "Fantastic beasts and where to find them". If anything, I'd say that it's more suitable for children. More childish.

The film takes place in 1926. Newt Scamander is a young English wizard who travels to New York with a suitcase full of mystical animals. He's a conservationist. The possession of these animals has been outlawed in America because they're too uncontrollable. If they escape the possibility is too big that they'll be seen by non-magical people. It's a strict law everywhere that magicians should remain hidden from the normal population.

Newt's main reason for his visit to America is to release a large animal, a Thunderbird, into its natural habitat in Arizona. This is complicated when three of his animals escape from the suitcase in New York shortly after his arrival. It's a difficult time. There are rallies of an organisation called the Second Salemers, who preach the evil of witchcraft and want to kill all wizards and witches.

While in New York Newt is given board by two sisters, an ex-hunter of dark wizards and a mind-reader. Another important character is Jacob Kowalski, an aspiring baker who has no magical abilities.

The film was successful, with a success rate of +2.5, which is quite respectable, though not as high as the Harry Potter films, which scored between +4 and +8. Its success is probably due to the popularity of the Harry Potter films. The real test will be the success of the sequel, which is in the cinemas now.

Success Rate:  + 2.5

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Hick (4 Stars)

After complaining a few days ago about Chloe Grace Moretz's last three films going straight-to-video I thought I would watch one of her older films from her successful years. "Hick" is a film I enjoy a lot, but maybe it was a bad example of her early career. I didn't realise until after I watched it today that it also went straight-to-video. Maybe the film industry has always been biased against her?

She plays Luli, a girl from a poor family in Nebraska. It's no sin to be poor, but her mother should have taken better care of her. Luli never knew her father, and all her life there have been a series of men living with them. On her 13th birthday Luli's mother buys her a gun. A girl needs to defend herself, doesn't she? Then they go to the bar for a drink.

Luli decides to run away from home. She wants to go to Las Vegas to find a sugar daddy. She doesn't get very far. While hitch-hiking she gets involved with a wannabe cowboy called Eddie. He's not the sort of rich man she's looking for, but a romantic involvement begins. He takes her to a friend's house where they can have a love nest. When she tries to leave him he goes crazy. He cuts her hair, dyes it black and keeps her tied to the bed whenever he goes out.

The moral of the story is that a young girl should never trust anyone she meets in the street. It's better to get to know men on the Internet and talk to them for a few months before moving together. It's never explained why he wants her to have short black hair. He's just crazy.

"Hick" was made in 2011, when Chloe Grace Moretz was only 14. Her acting ability at that young age was phenomenal. She deserves more than a straight-to-video career.

The film has only been released on DVD in America and England. You can order it on Blu-ray from Germany, if you're able to play Region B discs.

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The Danish Girl (3 Stars)

Usually when I review a film based on a true story I only write briefly about the film, concentrating on the facts behind it. I've decided not to do it in this case, because the film differs so greatly from what really happened in aspects vital to the story. If I wrote about the real Einar Wegener aka Lili Elbe it would be a totally different person to the one portrayed in the film. The film isn't to blame for the alteration of the facts. It's based on a best-selling novel by David Ebershoff, written in 2000, which fictionalises the events and their background. It's best that I avoid complications by treating the film as a work of fiction and only write about what it tells us.

Einar Wegener and his wife Gerda were both painters living in Denmark in 1920's. He was a successful landscape artist, considered by many to be Denmark's greatest living artist. She painted portraits of women and was less successful. When a model failed to turn up to be painted, Gerda asked Einar to dress up in women's clothing to take her place. Einar enjoyed the experience, and Gerda encouraged him to go out with her as a woman for a game. This game got out of control when Einar, calling himself Lili, began to flirt with a man at a dinner party.

Things became increasingly complicated. When dressed as a woman, Lili spoke of Einar in the third person, as if it were someone else. Similarly, when dressed as a man he spoke of Lili as a different person that he wanted to let out to play. This coincided with Gerda finally becoming successful, because her paintings of Lili were her best work ever.

After a few years Einar felt that it was time to abandon his male character and fully become Lili. To do this he went to Dresden for surgery to have his male organs removed and replaced by female organs. He chose the family name Elbe, the name of the river that flows through Dresden. The operation made him visually a woman, but it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to be able to have a baby, so he returned for a second operation that he didn't survive.

The acting of the two main characters is nothing short of phenomenal, worthy of Oscar nominations. It's almost that time again, isn't it? Eddie Redmayne ably manages to portray both a man and a woman, as well as the indecisiveness of someone living a double life. Alicia Vikander perfectly portrays the dilemma of a woman slowly losing the man she loves as he disappears into an abyss.

As I see it, the film was made with an agenda. It's intended to show the acceptability of people choosing their own gender, whether merely by dressing up as the opposite gender or undergoing gender alteration surgery. If I remember the correct words, Einar says of his operation, "God made me a woman. The doctor is curing me of the sickness that makes me look like a man". That's a highly political statement. It denies that a person undergoing a sex change operation is changing himself, it says that the person is being cured of something that was wrong in the first place.

Einar Wegener

Gerda Wegener

If you're wondering why I've rated this film so low, it's because it tramples on the truth in order to deliver its political message. I'll briefly describe the main deviations from the real characters.

Einar Wegener was not born a man. He was a hermaphrodite born with the traits of both genders. One of the complications in his second operation was that when the surgeon wanted to insert female reproductive organs, ovaries were found already present in his body.

Gerda Wegener was a lesbian and preferred her husband to dress as a woman.

Einar and Gerda lived in Paris much earlier than the film suggests, before the first World War. While in Paris, a city where nobody knew them, they lived as lesbian lovers.

Jupiter Ascending (1 Star)

Oh how are the mighty fallen! After "The Matrix" everyone thought that the Wachowski Brothers were the next big thing. Many people didn't like the second and third Matrix films, but I enjoyed them as a logical continuation of the original. But now they've made this horrible trash. Couldn't someone have stopped it before it came into the cinemas? The studios must have realised that they were sitting on a big budget turkey. I almost gave it two stars because of the special effects, but after thinking about it I changed my mind. No amount of special effects can make up for a poor story with an over-complicated script. On the contrary, if the special effects had been toned down the film might have been more enjoyable.

The plot: human life was created on Earth 100,000 years ago by a corporation on a planet in a far off galaxy. The intention was to breed humanity until the time of a harvest, when all humans on the planet would be broken down into their proteins to create an eternal youth serum. The time of the harvest is only a few years away, but on Earth a woman has been born who is the reincarnation of the head of the house of Abrasax, making her the owner of the planet Earth. Her brother Titus wants the Earth, so he plans to kill her.

I could go into more details on the film's plot, but it's not worth it. It's one of the worst films I've seen for a long time. Avoid it!

Les Misérables (4 Stars)

I'm reviewing the 2012 version of the musical starring Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean. The original story stems from a novel written by Victor Hugo in 1862. Unlike other French novels the original title has been retained for the English version, since it is difficult to translate accurately. A musical based on the novel was first performed in 1980, in French. In 1985 an English language version was first performed in London. The original novel spends a lot of time discussing moral issues, but this is kept to a minimum in the musical. Nevertheless, the lessons are there to be learnt.

The story begins in 1815 when Jean Valjean is released from prison after serving 19 years hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread. Officially he is still on parole, so he has to report to the authorities once a month for the rest of his life. He is given food and refuge in a church, but he is tempted by the riches he sees. He steals the silver plates and flees. The police capture him and bring him back, but the church's priest says that he had given Jean the plates as a gift, and chides him for having forgotten the most valuable items, the silver candlesticks. This act of kindness changes Jean's life, but he also decides that he will never report for his parole.

In 1823 Jean is living under a false name in Montreuil-sur-Mer as a factory owner and the town's mayor. One of his employees, Fantine, is fired because she has an illegitimate daughter. Destitute, she is badly beaten and Jean finds her shortly before she dies. Since he feels guilty for her fate he promises to take care of her daughter, Cosette, as if she were his own child. But Inspector Javert, a policeman who knew Jean as a prisoner, recognises him. Jean flees to Paris and takes on another new identity.

Cosette living in poverty

The story continues in 1832. A revolution is being planned. Inspector Javert is sent to Paris, where he recognises Jean. The revolutionaries capture Javert and deliver him to Jean, but Jean releases him. He says that he bears Javert no ill will because he was only doing his duty. Javert gives no thanks, saying that he will return to arrest Javert after the revolution has been crushed.

There are many more details to the story, but I've only described what's necessary to understand the moral issues. Jean started out as a petty thief, only stealing out of desperation, but his time of imprisonment hardened him. When he was released he had become an immoral person, willing to steal even from some someone who was helping him, but the priest's act of forgiveness made him want to help others. It's wrong to say that Javert was a bad man. In one scene he is speaking to God, and we see that he honestly thought he was doing God's work in pursuing Jean. Javert's mistake was not seeing that a person can change. "Once a thief, always a thief". This is a mistake made by many today, Christians and others. Repentance can be a reality, but others who have "always been good" don't want to accept it and assume the change is only being pretended.

Jean, in the face of persecution, continues to do good. He lives to serve others, especially his adopted daughter Cosette. He even saves Javert's life when he has the chance, by letting the revolutionaries think he is already dead. A man who is truly good doesn't do good in order to gain a reward -- in this case a pardon from Javert -- he does good for its own sake. "Les Misérables" has a lot of lessons to teach us.

Hick (4 Stars)

Luli is a teenage girl from Nebraska. On her 13th birthday she's given a gun. Fed up of her dead end life, she decides to run away to Las Vegas to find a sugar daddy to finance her rise to fame. But things are never as easy as they seem. What follows is a road movie across the seedier landscape of the southern states. It's easy for a pretty young girl to hitch a ride, but the friendly motorists always want something in return. Luli learns how to drink whiskey, snort cocaine, rob gas stations and commit murder. But however low she sinks things can always get worse.

The film only had a limited cinema release due to its difficult subject matter. It was savaged by critics who accused it of stereotyping people from the southern states of the USA. I hate to disagree with the critics who know so much more than me, but this is a good film. Chloe Grace Moretz delivers a stunning performance in the leading role, and the supporting characters are just as convincing. A lot of the film's quality seems to come through the creative style of the director, Derick Martini. Before today I had never heard of him, but I'll check out his other films.

Powder Blue (2 Stars)

A tale of loneliness in the big city.

A well-intentioned film with similarities to "Crash" that never really gets anywhere. Disappointing.