NinadeL

In retrospect, after Big Little Lies, it's easy to appreciate Jean-Marc Vallée's collaboration with Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. A pleasant experience, despite the fact that the subject is quite unique. Whoever is tempted by this adventure on foot through the wilderness can also read the autobiographical book of the same name by Cheryl Strayed.

I should have known right away that if I saw Madeleine Carroll's name on the poster, it would be a spy thriller. Carroll was already popular with Hitchcock in England, so it's no surprise that Hollywood cast her in the same genre. The General Died at Dawn is almost indistinguishable from The 39 Steps and Secret Agent. All of them are equally naive, except for the fact that in England Robert Donat was the idol and in Hollywood it was Gary Cooper.

The original cartoon is absolute perfection. It was originally a tiny film that wasn't even meant to be a feature film, and yet it has regularly moved generations and is simply wonderful. It’s understandable to young and old alike. Unfortunately, the live-action version is not like that at all. While Burton has surrounded himself with interesting people, the story is perfectly paced to fill almost twice the runtime of the original. But it doesn't work. The acted Dumbo film is neither touching, playful, nor fairy-tale enough, and there is not even a trace of the proverbial "Burton-touch." I’m sorry to say that even Eva Green or Michael Keaton in great costumes can't work miracles.

The first adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks romance is... quite the experience. An implausible story that should capture one's heart from the first minute, although there was no room to build any kind of relationship with the main characters. Eh. The once-attractive Robin Wright (The Princess Bride) and the long-forgotten Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves) meet over the poignant story of his late wife and, despite his asexual flannel shirt, take a chance on a new relationship. The ending is a parody of Hemingway.

After years of searching for adaptations of the famous social-critical novel by D. H. Lawrence, I'm coming to the point where I need to check out the soft erotic version produced by Showtime. There are also a few episodes of this available on porn sites at most ;). Well, it's a drop in quality, no doubt about it. But is it even possible to have a reference idea from two random episodes? In the season one episode Does He Have a Brother? a bunch of mismatched people (rich and bored, of course) try to figure out who's sucking up to whom, and in the meantime, we get a look inside their bedrooms. In an episode from the second season of Satisfaction, Lady (Shauna O'Brien) confesses to her friends and, like the fairy godmother, advises on the topics of marital and extramarital sex. One could almost say that this naive version is much closer to the narrative of Fanny Hill or Josephine Mutzenbacher. Which is actually a missed opportunity.

While in the first series we were introduced to the phenomenon called stand-up comedy, in the second series we enjoy more personal stories of individual comedians. For some, it may be better to have a more personal encounter with serial drama, but for others, more boring. So if the Goldie Club bunch grabbed you by the heart, go for it. Because each of them has a story to tell.

I haven't seen more garbage in the field of Czech romcoms in a long time. It would be nice to take off the rose-tinted glasses from time to time and realize that the mere casting of Bartoška in the lead role cannot cover up all the glaring flaws. As always, only tasteless female viewers who don't know the difference between a feature film and a TV series will enjoy it.

There should be one more film to bring Tolkien's biography to its conclusion. These are just the younger years and a reminder of the fact that even "The Lord of the Rings" is just a response to the horrors of the Great War. Like anything written by the Lost Generation, including A. A. Milne. And of course, before the war, everyone, without distinction, went on dates by taking their sweethearts to Wagner operas ;)

Jay Roach should get a kiss for the simple combination of Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie, and Nicole Kidman. An absolutely great film. A topical and important issue. And as a sweet treat, we have Robbie in the arms of Kate McKinnon. Hell has frozen over.

What should you expect from the great Texas saga charting the story of a generation based on the novel by Pulitzer winner Edna Ferber? First off, a big widescreen color film, a screen on which Lizzy Taylor remains for three and a half hours, and James Dean spices it all up. In the 1950s, Hollywood didn't really care much about sets and costumes and how they evolved over time, so it's very difficult to keep track of the time jumps, you can only orient yourself by the cars or the age of the kids, and that’s not enough. Indeed, it's all a foreshadowing of Dallas, as the proclaimed mentality of Texas cattle chasers and oil tycoons is prescribed here in exactly the spirit the series would later build upon. Personally, I would recommend an older film, Boom Town with Clark Gable (1940), if you are interested in a similar theme. This experience with Giant falls into the category of pure reference.