Remedy

It’s true that the screenplay for Matchstick Men is not particularly glorious. If it had fallen into the hands of even a mediocre director, it probably would have turned out a lot worse. But Ridley Scott is a more than above-average director :)) and so he squeezed what he could. The result is a film that pretends to be a light-hearted crime comedy until the last moment (and this position suits it very well), only to dick you around at the end, to put it vulgarly. :) It's just a pity Sam Rockwell didn't get more space. 75%

Hats off to Terry Gilliam who, despite his status as perpetual underdog, managed to deal with the death of Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and cast 3 excellent actors in his place. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is actually sort of a fairy tale, serving up a visual feast on a diamond platter that I couldn't get enough of :)) Something of a Faustian theme, something of a Monty Python theme, and of course Gilliam's unmistakable signature with his incredible directorial sense – all of this is what his latest effort has so far. It has to be said that 4 stars in this case is a rating of a slightly different character – I don't want to go into greater detail about it, so I'll just say that these are simply Gilliam stars, to which I ascribe greater value than any "fives".:))

An excellent crime drama that is truly one of the best in its genre. From the script, to the choice of actors, to the superbly evoked atmosphere, to Curtis Hanson's directing, L.A. Confidential is truly near perfect. The last 40 minutes or so are the ultimate. :)

Set against the backdrop of those horrific events, The White Ribbon reveals the warped morals and stifling atmosphere of a German village, which escalates as the number of atrocities escalates. The spasmodically punctilious and often unnecessarily cruel upbringing of the children blinds the minds of the villagers in their search for the real culprits – unable to even admit or consider that their offspring might have had something to do with it... A very impressive drama indeed, with excellent child actors, in which interpersonal relationships and concealed loathing are excellently portrayed alongside unidentifiable evil (Haneke really takes the gloves off for this one). P.S.: I was pleasantly surprised by the almost full capacity of the multiplex. :) 90%

Your reputation precedes you, Master Tarantino :))) A somewhat unusual WWII odyssey (that it wasn't exactly going to be an exemplary university course on the Third Reich was well known in advance) that is compact and masterful in every way. But that it would be an exemplary and proper piece of excellent filmmaking, I knew from the first minutes. Even the "mere" first chapter, which, apart from the conclusion, rests "only" on excellent, but really excellent, dialogue, gives a hint that Basterds is going to be, above all, a royal helping of entertainment where there is no danger of being disappointed by an undeveloped script or underdeveloped characters. Tarantino gives each character in the script adequate space relative to their importance in the plot and, naturally, the potential of the actors. I didn't consider any of the characters underdeveloped. Careful choice of music, once again fresh and imaginative directing (the flying cigarette butt, whiplash, the tense conversation in the spinning circle of the camera), a script with Oscar ambitions and the absolutely, but really absolutely perfect Christoph Waltz (also at least that nomination, please:) a.k.a. Hans Landa – brilliant, really brilliant. --- I WANT MY SCALPS. ---

At times a pleasantly, almost touchingly funny drama (but not a comedy by any means), led by two of my very favorite actors who have been some of the most in-demand and busy actors in Hollywood in recent years (in the previous ones too, of course :) ), and even though they sometimes make films of fluctuating quality, you can find a few memorable roles in their filmography. Before all those Jack Dawsons, fake lawyers, doctors or pilots :), CIA agents, or French kings (Louis XIV, I’m guessing :)), Leonardo DiCaprio took on one really very difficult role, but he managed to play it with tremendous ease and grace. Ironically, his first big role is the performance of his life, where he showed that he can really act, and Tommy Lee Jones's Oscar at the expense of DiCaprio is an obscenity and one of the many mistakes of the Academy. After all, his mentally handicapped Arnie has everything from gestures and speech to peculiar displays of emotion and a pathological love for the mother who tries to protect him at all costs. Johnny Depp basically plays his standard, albeit a very decent standard :) However, his portrayal of Gilbert Grape has a huge charm that no Depp character would ever have afterward so radiantly and convincingly. The whole rural or small town setting, the characters that the viewer falls in love with in the first few minutes, the basically modest but all the more fitting music, the more than convincing acting performances (I can’t overlook Juliette Lewis, naturally :) ) and last but not least Hallström's civil but in all respects sensitive and assured direction – all these ingredients come together to create a wonderful human story and a truly powerful cinematic experience. Definitely Lasse Hallström's best work.

A mediocre thriller-horror where probably the biggest flaw is the underdeveloped characters, because the viewer has no chance to form a relationship with any of them in 90 minutes, so all their "personal tragedies" for all practical purposes ring hollow. Milla's acting is quite decent, the soundtrack is passable, and the direction is commensurate with the quality of the film. 60%

Breaking the Waves is really a very deep and powerful story that depicts love and a love relationship from a slightly different perspective. An emotionally unforgiving epic about how hard it is (in the case of the main character, no doubt even harder than for "normal" people) to find love, but that is nothing compared to keeping love and being a dutiful wife at all costs. Her desperate efforts eventually lead Bess to the fringes of a hypocritical and would-be orderly society, to finally do "what is expected of her"...

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. After an unnecessarily long and drawn out opening about ignited passion (I understand that in terms of content it certainly has its point, but I found it boring at times), the reunion occurs again after eight years – at this point the plot begins to pick up and offers a truly excellent drama about hurt feelings and the difficulty of letting go of the past. Daldry's matter-of-fact, aware and precise direction is perfect for the subject matter of The Reader, all the actors perform more than adequately to the accompaniment of the beautiful chamber music, and the ending is well scripted, but it's not up to full marks with me. 90%

By using elements of symbolism, romanticism, realism, and above all naturalism, Lars von Trier has achieved an almost magical atmosphere, which together with the acting of the two protagonists, gave me a truly extraordinary, breathtaking and often pulse-quickening experience, the likes of which I have never seen in a cinema before. During the climactic scenes, when my companions and the other occupants of the cozy cinema room averted their eyes or whispered various words quietly to each other, I was "only" aware of my accelerated pulse and drops of sweat on my forehead, but I watched every second very closely, because I was completely captivated by von Trier's crazy openness... The prologue, with its beautiful musical accompaniment, is interspersed with a character study that explores the psyche of the Woman in considerable detail and chronicles the Man's efforts to identify the demons that torment the Woman's soul and prevent her from moving past that fateful event for both of them. At the moment when the demons and evil in the form of the raging nature completely engulf the Woman, she becomes a deranged and cold-blooded sadist, driven only by her own suffering and the terrible pain inside her heart. Antichrist cannot be described as a shocking and controversial film, for it is an utterly unique lyrical-epic work of art, a ballad with elements of romance, an atypical poem revealing the darkest and most terrifying aspects of human nature, or a desperately accurate and relentless account of the consequences of a human tragedy, in this case the loss of a child. While von Trier's latest effort will have a hard time finding a wider fan base (as all of his films probably do), it will remain a gem for me for a long time, and one that I will treasure immensely even many years later. And as to whether it's self-indulgent, perverse, immoral, or revolting? From an austere and uncomprehending point of view, yes. The likes of Emil Zola or Karel Josef Šlejhar would be delighted. --- NATURE IS SATAN'S CHURCH ---