Totally fine documentary with a promising bunch of interviewees. Butsomehow it manages to be bit thin in truly interesting nuggets.
🎬 What Drives Us
Subscribe
I’m a freelance web developer based in Düsseldorf, Germany. I make a RSS feed reader called FeedCity. I’m also a passionate film photographer, a husband and father, a musician, metalhead, and movie fan.
- Author
- Daniel Pietzsch
- Rights
- © 2019–2025 by Daniel Pietzsch, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
- Public lists
- HWC DUS IWC DUS 2025
🎬 Hellraiser
Finally, I have seen this movie! And what a treat! Everything’s greatabout it: plot, costumes, sound, acting, sets. And the special effects!And it’s scary as hell – as it should be for a horror film. Lookingforward to part 2!
🎬 Jason X
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Wow, we made it through this whole series. And it didn’t end on a high note. This was trash. And I could enjoy some of it. For example, I liked that Jason was this brutal force that just kills. Or the cliché nudity. Or the sometimes quirky charming dialogue. And the scene where he beats the one girl in the sleeping bag with another is just hilarious. But oh man, this was long, the set design was terrible (reminded me of American Gladiators in a lot of scenes), and the characters and the plot: puh. And don’t get me started on wardrobe or props. It was cheesy, too. Anyhow, it is what it is. And this over-the-top rendition is a fitting finale for this series IMO. And it’s good, it’s over now. May Jason rest in peace.
🎬 White Noise
Lovingly made: great lighting, fantastic choreography, great acting andmuch more. But overall unfortunately the plot seemed senseless andinconsequential to me, which made me care less and less as the filmprogressed. Had good things, but I’d rather watch a Wes Andersson movie.
🎬 Bones and All
Some aspects were totally fine in this, but ultimately this wasn‘t mykind of movie.
🎬 What We Do in the Shadows
A bloody healthy and funny dose of New Zealand for me.
🎬 The Power of the Dog
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
I would watch this again; to see if I notice some more subtle clues earlier and pay more attention to the individual chapters on their own. The storyline is so well done: it progressively changes the impression you have or had of both Phil and Peter. And in the end I didn‘t know how to feel about any of them really – pity or aversion or simply empathy.
A great film about men and their hardships/obstacles/difficulties they faced and how those manifested themselves in their behaviour and characters in very different ways.
🎧 Sky Void of Stars – Katatonia
🎬 One Hour Photo
I don’t want to focus too much on the negative, but this film didn’tstir up much excitement in me. Maybe just because it looked dated (and alittle bit like a 90’s commercial). Maybe because I thought it onlyscratched the surface of what it could have been. Maybe because I wasreminded that I personally don’t like Robin William’s acting all thatmuch.
Anyhow, it’s an ok movie. I liked the directly photography-relatedscenes and the monologues or rather the protagonist’s thoughts onphotography.
🎬 Creating The Queen's Gambit
I wish this was longer.
🎬 The Queen's Gambit
What happened? I watched a series?! I guess I can handle 7 episodes. Andthis was really good! Loved all the characters, especially Beth Harmon’sand her adoptive mother’s. The plot was great, too. It was very wellacted; I thought all the facial expressions during the matched werefantastic. The film sets looked lovely (the CGI not so much, though),and a lot of piano music meant I enjoyed the soundtrack, too! It was abit long in the middle, but otherwise this was a very enjoyable watch!I’m kind of interested in chess now.
🎬 Don't Look Up
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Once again, I enjoyed Leo‘s performance in a movie. Jennifer Lawrence was great, too! And both their characters are well written IMHO. And I do agree with the movie‘s message. But man, is it on the nose! No subtlety whatsoever. Unfortunately it‘s way too long again, too. The first one and a half hours are just dragging. Towards the end, it does get better, and even has a few gags that are actually funny (when Leo amazingly delivers his last TV-speech, and then it cuts to him in the car with the bag over his head: pure gold!). But that unfortunately doesn‘t lift it above its mediocrity. Hm… that sounds probably harder than I mean it. Anyway, not quite for me.
🎧 Myriad – GAUPA
Here‘s one more female-fronted band, I‘m currently enjoying. Like these songs, like their sound, like her vocals (which do sound quite a bit like Björk).
🎧 Marked For Death – Emma Ruth Rundle
🎬 Next Door
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
What a morning! Twist after twist after twist.
Nicely filmed, great acting with fantastic dialogue.
My only nitpick is that I somehow found Daniel’s voice to sound somewhat hyper-clear/-real which made it sound a little unnatural.
But overall, this was great!
🔗 May – August 2021 – Daniel Pietzsch’s Photo Journal
Finally, after a year, I made an entry to the photojournal again.
Our three weeks summer holiday, weekend camping trips, some bike riding and other activities in Düsseldorf.
🎬 His House
Grief can be a witch – or a curse. Whatever it’s called, you have toopen yourself up (quite literally) to get rid of it.
The story and topics are important and interesting ones. And overallthis is well made. But it didn’t really grab me for some reason. Maybebecause sometimes it felt to me that the delivering of the horrors wereoverdone – especially the ending. The special effects were sometimesmore of a distraction.
But overall a good film, with quite a few good scenes. I would watchRemi Weekes’ next one.
🎬 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Production-wise, this is probably the best part of the Friday 13thseries. Camera work, lighting, sound, are all at least one level up fromthe usual production quality.
It starts very strong in my opinion. But then it goes into thissmall-American-town kind of vibe, which I don’t know, if it fits. Onitself this is a solid film, but in the series, this is the odd one out(so far – haven’t seen “X”). The special effects à la “The Thing” or“Alien” are totally my thing, and were probably the best thing about it.The characters were a bit too “Police Academy”-ish, with The Duke beingborder-line annoying.
In conclusion: a solid movie, but I feel like this would’ve been betteras a one-off rather than being part of the Jason-franchise.
🎬 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
This is more like “Jason takes the ferry” – because Manhattan content isindeed a bit thin. Anyhow, I liked this for the most part. Certainly oneof the better ones in this series. This has quite a bit of humour. Ienjoyed the stunts. The cheesy soundtrack, NY clichés and a nice guitarscene are not to be discounted, either. Solid!
🎬 Glass Onion
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
I’m probably wrong about this one. Because I found this to be so bad, I question my own judgement, given all those other overwhelmingly positive reviews about it. But having been through it, I now also question my own favourable review of its predecessor “Knives Out”.
To begin with, this is wayyy too long. It tries very hard being trendy. And funny. Well, I didn’t laugh. It was just silly. Most folks’ acting got on my nerves. The story is pretty constructed. It wasn’t suspenseful. I didn’t like a lot about the filming and editing itself. The ending is just ridiculous. I’m sorry, but It’s been an eye roller for me. And again, I’m probably wrong. Maybe I just didn’t get it.
🎬 The Cleaners
Well, merry Christmas! This is such a downer!
I think this was very well made and I felt it was nuanced enough toshine a light on opposites sites of what can be a very complicatedtopic.
I can recommend this, if you want to be informed about this topic. Justdon’t expect to not feel depressed afterwards.
🎬 The Nightmare Before Christmas
Lovingly made. Good soundtrack. But not quite my cup of frog’s breath.
🎬 Marriage Story
My kind of movie! A story that could well be true. Great dialogue,perfectly delivered (Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are just 👌),lots of attention to detail, interestingly filmed, great charactersthroughout, funny, heartbreaking. Remarkable front to back!
🎬 A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Loved the atmosphere of this film. And that it’s filmed in black andwhite. So, visually, this was already nice. Pair this with an Iranianvampire girl protagonist, great humour and a top-notch soundtrack andyou have a very fun movie!
🎬 V for Vendetta
I probably didn’t fully appreciate V’s lyrical outpour, but I stillenjoyed it very much. Lot’s of “1984”, conspiracy-theories themes and aninteresting master-apprentice kind of relationship. Nice one!
🎧 Gnosis – Russian Circles
Russian Circles is the instrumental post-metal band I keep coming back to.
That middle riff in “Conduit” is just perfect!
🎬 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Jason must stink for miles by now. It’s a miracle he’s still able to surprise-kill anyone at this point.
For me, same is true as with part 6: not the best, not the worst (I think?!). I somewhat liked the ending when Jason’s “face” is revealed and everything explodes. The supernatural hocus-pocus wasn’t that bad either.
Oh, yeah, and I found the very ending hilarious where the one firefighter shows the other where there’s more fire to extinguish – as if that wasn’t obvious.
On to part eight…
🎬 Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
This episode certainly has humour! Jason seems to be surprised by hisown new-found super-strength. And that makes for some funny kills.
It’s mostly fun to watch (if you’re into that stuff). We certainlyalways have an enjoyable evening progressing through this series. Butultimately, it suffers from the same issues most other parts sufferfrom. Not the worst so far, but no the best either.
🎬 The Matrix Reloaded
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Ok, I have much to complain about with this one. This feels like 80% endless action scenes and 20% story. If you’re into those bullet-time, kung-fu, wire-flying, super-CGI, camera-flying scenes, that will be just your thing, I guess. But I found this eye-rollingly boring. This could have been a one-hour film. It’s not like I dislike all of it; there were certainly good scenes – even partly said action scenes! But overall it’s way too long and unsubstantial. It’s even like the story didn’t progress at all in this.
At least Trinity could simply ssh into a computer and disable the emergency power supply of that building with a simple terminal command. Much more realistic than those UIs in their real world.
And it had RATM in the ending credits.
🎬 Big John
What a likeable dude, this John Carpenter. Just doing his thing, makingthe films he wants to make; not giving a shit what others think.Although having “The Thing” flop commercially really got to him. And hehad every right to be upset about this; because it’s such a terrificfilm. Anyhow, this documentary gives lots of insights about his carrierand his filmography. Worth a watch, especially when you’re into hiswork!