Lima

Let's forget about the traditional Russian imperial appetites, their classic ignorance of where their borders end, and let's just focus on this film. When Hollywood came up with an adaptation of Tolstoy's novel in 1956, it might have been seen as sacrilege in the MosFilm of the time. To paraphrase the title of Episode 5 of Star Wars, the Soviet Empire struck back and ten years later, in a spectacular style unprecedented up to that time, showed how they envisioned Tolstoy's novel in film form. Writing about Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace is very rewarding, because there really is something to talk about, and and it has to be said that no superlatives need be spared. I'll start with the records: it is still the most expensive film of all time. It holds the Guinness World Record for the number of outdoor locations where it was filmed, 168. 120,000 extras took part in the filming of the gigantic battles!!! The filming took seven years and the result is a breathtaking seven hours of cinematic orgasm. Whether it's the monumental battles, or the scene of the burning of Moscow, with the streets full of flying ash, in its day, in the cinema on 70mm panoramic, it was a real blast. The leading roles were played by the complete cast of Soviet cinema, including the director in the title role. Unfortunately, even such a gigantic work is not perfect. While Bondarchuk impresses as a director of mass scenes, he sometimes fails in the interior, subtly conceived scenes. But that's just a small complaint, otherwise it's a a massive delicious steak, to use a culinary simile.

If I was a lonely nihilist who doesn't know what to do with his life and is looking for a (dubious) role model, I’d probably be rooting for this movie, but I suffered through it. The probe into the depths of the dark soul worked in the first film thanks in part to its glorious cinematic foreshadowing and Todd Phillips' unorthodox approach, but it also said all the essentials, so I really have no idea why I should dig into that emotional morass again for another two and a quarter hours without going anywhere. At the same time, Phillips had so many options for how to proceed, how to open the Joker gates of anarchy, and he chose the worst one: to chew through the entire first film again, thanks to the recollections of the participants at the trial, in a trial that lasts an hour and a half (!). Moreover, with an ending that pushes the whole thing even further into the category of "useless act". I was at least looking forward to some nice cinematography like the first film had, but all the nicely shot scenes were burned through in two minutes by the trailer. I'm sorry that my favorite Joaquin Phoenix broke his policy of never making a sequel in his career .... because of this. A sprinkling of Golden Raspberries awaits.

A now time-tested classic that relies on great practical effects that easily leave today's CGI crap biting the dust, with giant worms who seem to have come out of the best of Stan Winston's productions. In terms of plot, it's an admittedly monster B-movie, but with A-list production and top-notch practical effects. The 'City of Perfection' settlement with its 14 likeable residents is brilliant, Val and Earl are a great partnering duo who bring light-hearted guy humour and there's not a single deaf spot. The way the protagonists always come up with an idea to avoid or somehow dispose of one of the three giant mosnters is in no way a match for the antics of the legendary MacGyver. Almost the entire second half plays out over the few hectares of the small settlement, but that small space is imaginatively made the most of.

“He walks around, don´t look at him, whoever gets in his way gets his head cut off.” It has imaginative murders, especially the one with the girl doing yoga is unusually brutal even for the genre (it would make Jason Voorhees pale with envy), the character of the creep has some mythological background, so you can understand why he does what he does, but otherwise... Well, it's a bit of a walking simulator, admittedly through a beautiful countryside, but in the pointlessly drawn out scenes you become painfully aware of why some viewers like to reach for the fast-forward in certain situations, although I don't practice this myself, I always honestly see films through to the end. But a few interesting edits and one imaginatively composed scene show that there is SOMETHING in Chris Nash after all, so it may be worth watching him as a filmmaker in the future.

It's as simple as that, Miloš Forman took the Czech New Wave with him across the sea and made his first American film in its style. In short, a kind of Audition or Peter and Pavla, but in the hippie mood of the early 1970s, which was still bubbling in American society at the time. No wonder it was a flop (and Forman, according to his own words, slept in a hotel for half a year afterwards, as he was devastated), because its new-wave poetics were not embraced by overseas audiences. It's true that almost three quarters of an hour passes before there is any plot development, and I would have cut down a bit on the casting scenes with the singing girls, but thanks to them and the contemporary "live" music that accompanies the whole film, it has a special mood that few other films have. Otherwise it had me in stitches, and I was laughing the whole time at the adults who are here as awkward figures (the marijuana scene bonkers) as opposed to their children, and it's clear who had Forman's sympathies. And if that's not enough for you, there's a nearly five-minute performance by the then-rising starlet, a young Tina Turner. Even then, she could rock it.

It has an attractive execution, interesting visuals, the camera is constantly moving in nice locations and coming up with unusual shots, it looks very cinematic and it's brilliantly shot for a debut. It's just that when you think about the premise and the twist even a little bit, it stands on very shaky clay legs. The exposition before the major twist is too long and after an hour or so many viewers will get tired of watching a bunch of constantly celebrating and exuberant extroverts. That said, Zoe Kravitz has an interesting directorial style and may be on the verge of great things in years to come. And I'd like to see Channing Tatum in this unconventional role more in the future.

I really like Paul Schrader's scripts in his strong 70s and 80s. But it's also a well-known fact that the more interesting his themes and ideas were and are, the worse he is as a director; it was always better to have someone more skilled take on his screenwriting brainchild (yes, Mr. Scorsese, I'm pointing at you). Here again, the premise is quite interesting, but delivered by Schrader in such a tired way that you just don't enjoy it. In fact, the story doesn't really work towards the end either, and thanks to cheap plot crutches and a point that lacks any punch, you don't recognise the Taxi Driver screenwriter here at all. And if that's not enough misery for you, the old man tries to convince you that video games are mainly played by rapists and junkies. Boo.

It's clear to me why this film was pulled from cinemas for several years because it didn't conform to the ideological norms of the time. Karel Höger is here as a bankrupt creature who drinks a lot, smokes like a factory, and as an ideologically defective person is not in the party, which is why he is subjected to bullying. The personal-party tug-of-wars didn't engage me at first, much less the frequent comradeship, as did the hanging around a certain miner, spiced with a little hint of his wife's infidelity. Fortunately, at around the 50-minute mark there is a turning point, a major flashback that illuminates why things have been happening as they have been, and the acting of Höger, a master of his field, and his beautiful sonorous voice give it all a certain emotional charge. He could play the alcoholic convincingly, and when you add to that a nice cinematography and an emotionally tense, touching ending, just as Václav Krška was able to do, satisfaction prevails in the end. But more in the "seen it and probably once is enough" category, the Socialist odour in the first half was too strong for me.

With the first notes of Iron Maiden, which I don't hear in movies, I knew this would be the movie for me. The path set by John Wick all those years ago started tire me with the fourth movie, with dozens of dead bodies dropping like bowling pins, and the whole thing feels unrealistic. Here, in contrast, they don't play with the dead, they skimp on the action, and when it does happen it looks believable, like guys who have no superpowers, just like a normal fight between regular family guys vs one slightly more trained guy. Actually, it's not even an action movie, more of a focused drama about police corruption, so the oft-mentioned comparison to the first Rambo is no that warranted. Aaron Pierre is a revelation, that stoic calm, stern look, charismatic voice, he can convey everything in the slight twitches of his face. And when he gets his moves going, it’s amazing. So it's clear. The great, and again underrated here, Hold the Dark was no accident, Jeremy Saulnier is worth continuing to watch.

I wasn't drawn in. I almost cared more about whether the main character, a private eye, would find his way back to his cheating wife, a minor subplot here, than whether he would bring back to his stepmother her wandering stepdaughter from Florida, where things really drag on lethargically and where I was only entertained by the fine sexual tension between the detective and the blonde femme fatale. That's the first hour, then from a certain point onwards it picks up some momentum and the corpses pile up, including the final climactic ten minutes, which in its overwroughtness feels more like a bit of B-movie drama than a very slowly told story up to that point. Gene Hackman is great here, as always, with a young Melanie Griffith almost unrecognisable. And it has a fine jazzy musical score at times, but .... I was expecting something better from the seasoned Arthur Penn.