DaViD´82

If the twelve episodes were cut into the shape of a miniseries with much fewer episodes, this would be an extraordinary and good and solid crime movie from the tough “lone wolf of a policeman versus corrupt political system" category. It has the potential for it. It’s just a shame that it’s more of an inkling of potential instead of anything tangible and applied in practice, because like this it’s like you’ve seen it a hundred times, but even though quite a solid and thrilling genre movie, which is unfortunately spoiled by one (here more and there less) annoying cliché after the other and a fluctuating tempo.

A slow-moving conspiracy spy thriller (from the world of independent analysts working for big state agencies) maintaining a pleasantly down to earth style common to most British productions or genre movies of the seventies. Over the moon? I was too, but... But there are just too many “buts". The first problem is that in the opening episode the main hero is shown as an unparalleled genius, but in everyday life he is more of a clumsy idiot living in his own world. As of the second episode the very same hero is suddenly very practical, cunning and focused, but incredibly stupid (in fact during the whole series, except for the crossword in the prolog, he doesn’t solve anything on his own) not able to fit together painfully obvious information. And what’s worse: the first couple of episodes it seeks a style of its own, an inner fervor and tempo, and there is more mysterious hinting rather than real action. Instead of showing the essential stuff (Will’s search on his own and the everyday routine of his team) it sinks into dead-end trifles like “an assistant trying to solve her personal life". And when it finally finds its style, half of the episodes are gone and it slowly gets to the finale, when we find out that it’s not as clever as it seemed all this time; or in this case, as it was pretending to be.

It isn’t usual for an expensive blockbuster (and especially a remake of an action movie of the eighties) to put its money on ambiguous characters, a moral dilemma about the limits of “humanness" or a criticism of America as the self-proclaimed “global policemen who should clear up their own mess at home"; all of this of course (unfortunately) toned down to large-budget proportions and diluted by the mandatory (and superfluous) SFX action ingredient, but all in all the course they chose was still entertaining, I tell you.

With all due respect to Gomorra (the book) or The Wire, this best depicts the functioning and the structure of all-encompassing corruption which is not longer seen as corruption and is beginning to be the accepted social norm... With part one, many mistook a movie about a fascist police unit for a fascist movie. There is no chance of that with part two, which paradoxically has more in common with Padilha’s documentary Ônibus 174 than with part one. Even though maybe someone will mistake this movie about corruption for a corrupt movie.

It’s not so easy to stage “Coriolanus" well. On the one hand you have to struggle with the fact that this isn’t one of Shakespeare’s best works. Not that it’s bad, but everything the author says here he has said in his other plays and often better and here it’s rather too full on. Another drawback is the “classical pomp". Here they handled it unusually through absolute minimalism which they apply very ingeniously (apart from the jeans), but in my eyes it doesn’t really suit this (especially not the jeans). Because of that, this is a bit like Cimrman’s “Hamlet" without Hamlet. Otherwise no complaints; with his great performance, you forget that he is too young to play Caius Martius (although it’s striking that he plays him identically to how he played Hal in The Hollow Crown) and the others (with the occasional exception in the shape of unimportant supporting roles, isn’t that right, Sørensen?) are never far behind; particularly Gatiss and Findlay steal the show.

The reverse side of anthropology through the differences on the academic ground, in a wider context concerning exactly what an anthropologist can(’t) get away with these days. The central point is the fact that (not only) the anthropologists (un)knowingly take hostage the famous and already publicly known “prehistoric" Indian tribe, the Yanomami, driven by ambition, settling of accounts with other scientists or satisfaction of appetites. As is customary with the documentary work of José Padilha, his main advantage is that he leaves it up to the viewer to decide what to think and doesn’t say “this guy is really evil, this guy is touchy about the results of his lifelong research being overturned, this guy is like this and that guy like that". He simply submits the facts and offers them for discussion from all sides; including even the uninvolved academic community or Yanomamos themselves.

I can’t remember a documentary that was so smart and managed cleverly and effectively to work with such a wide range of emotions and was so strong that it could slam any objections to the fact that everything was presented in a way that was uncritical to the immaculate heritage of Ayrton Senna (or else poor Prost who is presented here almost like the devil himself).

Everything in this is g(o)od(s). Director duo of Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs adapted Lego as… Well, as an angular version of Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs. In other words it’s just as unbalanced, but also peculiar, imaginative with masses of sophisticated absurd humor with one gag after the other, goofy and playful. And if the (creative) playfulness is a synonym for Lego as bricks, now it also applies to Lego as a promotional feature film. Which I think is the most important thing. P.S.: Both the dubbing and the translation are extraordinarily good and the brainwashing song is in Czech much more impressive and catchy than in the original.

You can tell a good documentary by the fact that it manages to absorb you despite subject matter that you don’t give a damn about. And in my opinion, nothing can be less interesting on paper than a documentary about the importance and history of the America’s backup singers. The strange thing is, that even though I was blissfully unaware about this field, I know nothing more about it now (apart from the discovery of Lisa Fischer). I think everyone is well aware that black girls didn’t have an easy life back then, and it might also occur to you that being a good backup singer is difficult enough in itself and hard work full of self-denial. And there’s nothing more to it. Or, rather, there is. Lots of talking heads, slapping each other on the back, here and there telling a compelling story. And then there’s great work on the music side, but that is somehow what you’d expect from a music documentary.

The war on terror transformed into a self-fulfilling prophecy. You certainly had a teacher who could put a whole class to sleep with his monotonous delivery however interesting the topic was. Jeremy Scahill is just that sort of teacher. And it’s a fundamental drawback, because it is evident that he is an extraordinarily talented investigative journalist who isn’t afraid of delving into unpopular topics and asking the western world unpleasant but burning questions. You can just feel how he is disgusted with the current situation, how he would like to shake up the status quo of “things we don’t talk about". At the same time it is clear that he isn’t interested in shoveling controversial manure onto a family tomb, but that he’s trying to change something by uncovering faults. He has a talent for finding the right stories and evidence, which sometimes isn’t absolutely conclusive or without question marks about their credibility, but he doesn’t claim anything about them, he just believes that these facts should be known and everybody can make up their own mind. And it’s not so much about big conspiracies (even though everything about JSOC is crying out for attention) and more about personal fates. He lacks one thing; judgment. He should have let somebody else do this presentation, someone who could sell it well and who wouldn’t talk so much, and not to be so literal where it isn’t fitting. This really does seem like ninety-minutes of report reading in front of a committee than anything else. This also applies to the form which isn’t ideal and tries to hide the lack of relevant footage by filming Scahill walking though towns, riding on a train etc. So, it’s highly interesting and edifying, but due to the form and his unfortunate delivery, it’s rather boring.