POMO

This schematically and dramaturgically simple documentary consists of interviews with climbers interspersed with videos from their journey. As a climbing enthusiast, however, I was happy mainly because of the sheer number of those videos, through which we gradually get to the top. That’s because in other documentaries, such original shots are just a rare bonus, not the cornerstone. And I was really amused by one of the guys, who commented on the ascent to K2 with these words: “It’s like climbing in the High Tatras mountains, but it’s harder to breathe and everything takes three times as much time and effort.”

For a dime-a-dozen commercial product, this movie is well thought out and engaging from the first minute to the last. In the end, it doesn’t really leave the audience with anything deep and doesn’t invite repeated viewing, but it will keep your eyes glued to the screen for those 90 minutes. And the only people irritated by the ending might be those who have never seen a single American mainstream action movie.

Iron Man is silly but fun flick that won’t rivet you to your seat with the dynamics and spectacle of X-Men or Spider-Man, but it will amuse you with Robert Downey’s showing-off (the whole film rises and falls with him) and surprise you with its interesting cast. It’s not often that you see Jeff Bridges as a bald villain and Gwyneth Paltrow as a superhero’s assistant. Otherwise, however, Iron Man is super harmless and family-friendly, bordering on childish. It could have used more cynicism and an ironic adult perspective.

The audience gets closer to the protagonist by slowly uncovering his childhood in a dysfunctional family. At the beginning, they might feel cold towards him, especially for his overly radical outsider opinion and reluctance to accept anything from consumerist reality. As a viewer, however, I was able to overcome this coldness towards Chris and ended up with tears in my eyes. Into the Wild is a wise, psychologically complex film that boldly explores deep existential questions. Moreover, it is beautiful. And Sean Penn is a genius. I consider his feeling-based portrayal of Los Angeles to be the second best scene of the film (behind only the brilliantly edited ending).

Mongol is a well-cast and visually beautiful epic shot in stunning Kazakh and Chinese locations. Unfortunately, however, its script makes only a bit more sense and is slightly more consistent and engaging than that of Emmerich’s recent 10,000 BC. A pity.

Jumper for senior citizens.

This B-movie is a mix of everything we’ve seen a hundred times before, without a single idea, with hard-to-follow action scenes and flat characters. The more space Neil Marshall tries to cover – be it as a screenwriter or as a director – the more he messes up. And Doomsday is his most expansive film yet.

Paul Thomas Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit are film alchemists. Daniel Day-Lewis is a genius actor and There Will Be Blood might become this century’s Citizen Kane. This cynical, original and epic portrait of capitalist America is a masterpiece.

I saw this film in March 2008 in a unique ancient cinema (the small village of Nučice near Prague; there were dry toilets in that cinema!), which worked immensely in the film’s favor as it enhanced the atmosphere and bolstered my positive impression. What needs to be praised here is the intention of the creators to show the road to hell, when the other filmmakers show just the hell itself. The Last Train takes place on board a train heading to Auschwitz and ends with the arrival in hell, leaving the audience so horrified that they don’t need or want to proceed further. At the beginning, the film looks like the debut of a naïve director of theatrical comedies, but later it fortunately turns into a depressing drama, benefitting from a tense atmosphere and the time-proven appellation “this is how it really happened”. Too bad the film wasn’t able to make more of the individual characters.

With the exception of the mammoth hunt at the beginning, this naïve CGI fairy-tale has absolutely nothing to offer and is not entertaining, not even with Emmerich’s expected trademark silliness. It’s been a long time since I felt that I completely wasted two hours in a theater. From the script to the actors, 10,000 BC is an utterly empty movie. Ugh.