#29 Werckmeister Harmonies (D+)

Man. This was supposed to be great. I was really looking forward to this film. Per Metacritic.com (c), this was #1 out of the decade of the 2000's for top foriegn horror films. http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-foreign-horror-films-since-2000 What? There is nothing horror about this film. I read the comments from the people who critiqued the metacritic list and knew that this was one of the complaints (that it wasn't horror and no one understood why it was on the list) but I was okay with it anyway, and remained pumped. I emailed my buddies, texted a few, and talked to a few in person about my anticipation for this film. So what happened, why am I spending this time talking about something that isn't the film itself? Because it was so awful. I'm not sure about artsy films, I'm willing to try, but this was just so not good. I just went onto Netflix (c) and read some reviews. The first page and a half was all 5 stars saying that this film was "exhilarating" and "wonderful" and that even though they didn't know really what was going on, that it wasn't about the plot per se but it was about the "poetry" of Tarr (the director). Piss. Then I decided to read some reviews which were 2 stars. That's more where I'm aligned. Those guys are my homies! Come on over for dinner buds, because your reviews are where it's at.

So the movie...uh, basically black and white and lots of continues filming of shots, often 10+ minutes of the same shot. Okay, that's cool. The filming angles and continuousness was worth something. And really, that's the only reason I put the "+" onto the D up there. Otherwise, a guy walks around - he's got an uncle - there's a whale in the town - people get beat up - there's some old dude naked in a tub - they stop beating people up...I don't know, and honestly that kind of makes it sound cool. But add in 130 minutes of boring to that mix and it doesn't work for me. Just not good at all. A real let down. I wish this movie was a 30 minute short film instead of 2 stinking hours. They could have cut MOST of the movie out as I see no point to it. In fact, I'd rather watch Stalker. Bye.