stefanpuiuro

After directing some of the funniest (well, in my opinion) Romanian comedies, Nae Caranfil seemed like he had somewhat lost the plot after the great "Filantropica". "Restul e tăcere" was still funny and subtle, but a bit too long and at times losing steam. I never got "Closer to the Moon" - unconvincing story, easily my least favorite film of his. But this one's definitely a winner!

"6.9 pe scara Richter" is far removed from new Romanian wave movies. It's got a great story, it's part musical (with the actors all singing their parts, or so claims the director), it's got great humor - it got many laughs at the screening I was at. It goes back to the director's roots a bit - some of the characters, including the lead, are theater actors, just like in "E pericoloso sporgersi", his first movie. Even actor pranks make a comeback.

It's probably lighter on the social commentary compared to "Filantropica" or "Asfalt Tango", while focusing more on personal themes. But still, there's plenty to enjoy here.

This movie isn't actually that bad; it certainly doesn't deserve the endless line of 1-star reviews. I went to see it with very, very low expectations, after reading a negative review of it, and ended up enjoying quite a bit of it.

Even from the trailer you can tell this is a silly, childish comedy with plenty of toilet and/or sexual humor. I don't know what people came to expect from it - this certainly doesn't attempt to be anything else besides that. Maybe many people aren't used to seeing De Niro in such a role, but hey, he's done other silly comedies already. Not all the jokes are that great, but it was good fun nevertheless.

So, definitely childish, definitely silly, but also definitely funny in my book. I even ended up feeling for De Niro's character - hey, it's his last stand after all. So, if you don't expect much and aren't easily offended by jokes that sometimes are a bit too silly / gross /etc, you might even enjoy this!

"American Sniper" reminds me of "Team America" - both are over the top ridiculous, only while the latter was bitingly sarcastic, this one is dead serious. One has a song saying "Team America, f**k yeah!", while the other has lines like: "Shall we go kill some bad guys? F**k yes!". I'm pretty sure skimming through the scripts can yield more parallels. This is how bas AS is.

I don't think this exercise in hagiography does the memory of Chris Kyle any service. The movie seems to care only about glorifying "killing bad guys", without any attempt at looking at the elusive bigger picture - why do the "bad guys" fight us? What's the war about? Do the means justify the greater goal, which... I'm not too sure what that was? I can only think of "Trial at Nuremberg" as an example of how American movies used to be, and that one was about the aftermath of a war the US had actually won (or helped win). That one was more introspective, wondering whether the US had the right to judge the defeated, asking whether the Germans shouldn't be allowed a little dignity, after all. No such questions in Clint Eastwood's movie; one character has some doubts, only to be quickly dismissed by Bradley Cooper's character in 2 sentences. Yay - just like old Soviet propaganda movies.