Isherwood

The "hard" cinematography and the narration going through an avalanche of dialogues with the absence of visual narration initially confuse the viewer, but the dream romance turns into a drama, then into a thriller, and the morality falls on its face into the mud. That’s quite an unorthodox way to go against the sunshine trend, which Allen does get to with a very shaggy insert from the detective office. However, it was probably all worth the feeling of Dostoyevsky turning uneasily in his grave a few times.

The Czech Century made by a bunch of friends from FAMU. Or even the atmosphere of the Žižkov freight station can't hide the fact that referring to Szczygieł's book is simply not enough because it's always difficult with short story films if they are to be evaluated as a whole. Yet there are quite a few unifying elements here: pathos and narrative naivety (Lída Baarová and the slow-mo from Fiery Summer? Zdeněk Adamec as a longer report on TV news, c’mmon!) on the one hand, and a plot vacuum (Stalin) on the other.

An admirable performance in the discipline of "depicting a village stereotype," which simply cannot be titled anything other than another stereotype: "It’s good for Prague people," which is all the more disappointing because Krobot is a native of the region and in fact denies in such a fundamental way what he should understand best. The Prague actors spout dialect and vulgarisms through their teeth in a dysfunctional way and function only as wearers of great costumes. Yet it's an indescribably sad story, where the writer and producers seem to have realized at the last minute that the film would sell better as a redneck comedy. Fail.

The script is just stupid enough. I'm simply fascinated by the studio's policy of bringing these over-serving tandems on set under the baton of directorial routinists who operate with the given material more than casually and can only make it work in a few catchy lines and, regarding this film, a unique religious Germanic outburst. Otherwise, it’s essentially a very sterile and fleeting spectacle.

This is a film I've always subconsciously wanted to see. Creative patience and the ability to capture in life exactly those fleeting moments that shape us further have produced quite possibly the most calculating film in history, but at the same time I can't imagine it could have been made one bit better. If I were a film theorist, I'd analyze it endlessly. At this point, I want to see it at least three more times.

This time there’s no CGI in the service of perfectly crafted emotions, honest monkey looks, and precise directorial construction of a simple plot, as Reeves sees the film's basic thrust on the exact opposite spectrum of blockbuster rules. Work with the characters is at zero, and plot predictability is at the max. As the minutes ticked by, I honestly felt so bad for every moment I guessed in advance that I wanted to turn in my movie ticket and get my money back. Fail of the year.

Lin has hit his limits, given that situations involving the characters and their emotional interactions elude him, taking his own feet from under him and in the final decision-making, he is unable to offer more than self-sacrificing glances and theatrical gestures. That’s assuming he doesn't fire off any major action bombs, but rather a still technically brilliant arrangement that has since last time abandoned any semblance of reality and ventured into the sci-fi genre (without a major highlight, moreover). This necessarily means a rough and painful fall that's ultimately hampered by the cast where everyone has parked themselves into their roles in a way that feels like they were just born for them.

You don't have to be a master builder to realize that the film's most significant asset is its subversive revolt against the Danish tycoon who churns out one cube set after another, from which it's now virtually impossible to build anything based on your own imagination; the heaps of humor, the Bruckheimer-esque action races and the great balance on all audience target groups are just a nice bonus. 4 ½.

Time travel means paradoxes and cracks in space, agency, and logic. I can fault it for the fact that it disrespectfully kicks its older brethren in the balls from its position as a successor to the original trilogy, and it does so with the conscious vigor that Matthew Vaughn and Bryan Singer brought back to the franchise last time, and from the relieved position of the spiritual father, rewrites the universe in the way we adored him for a decade ago, letting the superheroes talk rather than drawing swords from their wrists. It has the support of the actors, with Jackman cracking one-liners, Fassbender staring stubbornly, and McAvoy forgetting to shave his beard. Yet they work with complete certainty, turning a complicated script into a blockbuster joy that multiplies in every additional action scene (albeit that one is really hard to top). I actually do have one major complaint about it: I wanted more of the old group. But you can't stop the (r)evolution. 4 ½.

This is technically excellent, dosing the wild nineties in the visual diction of a striking music video, and drags behind itself the most "wannabe" mafia epic ever made here. Ployhar's camera can fly like at a fair, but later you begin to suspect that this is more traditional Czech shallowness, where you don't know if it's lacking a dramaturgist or just money for an extra half hour.