DaViD´82

Michele Placido. If it weren’t for the reissue of “The Octopus" on the shelves, I wouldn't have thought of him for years to come. But, for the second time this year, he really impressed me. First by performing in The Unknown Woman, and now with this criminal saga, based on real events about the rise and fall of several expendable small street criminals who are fed up with doing as they’re told and with waiting to fall out of favor, so they start their own outfit. It's nice and raw, without embellishments, and possibly even realistic. Too long, excellently acted, and almost fantastic. Still, it doesn’t receive top marks. One reason is that it’s overpopulated with characters, and the other is that it’s completely cold and de-personified. All I cared about was the fate of the "family" as a whole. Which may have been Placido's intention, but I believe emotions are simply part of these mafia opuses. But it did give me the impulse to read the original, that is true. P.S.: I'd appreciate the obligatory round up during the final credits on the fate of the survivors. I had to look them up online, which isn't exactly audience-friendly.

Can you possibly avoid succumbing to a movie where the opening scene shows a teenager in a movie theater, greatly enjoying a cigarette while recording the first Rambo with his video-camera? And when a little later he meets a boy from an orthodox Christian family, so together they decide to Swede (hi there, Be Kind Rewind which this movie has a lot in common with, as well as with Bridge to Terabithia) a sequel to the original movie about saving Rambo’s dad. All this in a perfectly recreated atmosphere of the eighties. A wonderful celebration of friendship, and the hardships and joys of growing up. If I were the same age as those two nice kids here, this movie would have become cult for me like Rambo for these two little guys or like Patrick Swayze for Didier. I not only understand them, but in fact I openly envy them. I stand firmly behind the full set of stars (and why on earth not, since I awarded them) if only for that dumb, delighted smile that this picture engraved into my face for a long time after. And when I think that I didn’t go to see it at the movie theater when I was visiting Edinburgh, for fear that this promising theme might turn into something too childish... I still feel like giving myself a good spanking for that. P.S.: The explanation of the original name of the movie in the dialog after the credits is better than the dry, although true, official one. I’m curious how they deal with that in the dubbed version.

The most critical of society (the author's favorite discipline), the most current, the funniest, the most cynical, the most character-driven, the most acute, but at the same time, because of the second half, the most unraveling Romero. Referring to the director’s cut.

Lots of people criticize Jakubisko for choosing his own path and not following in the footsteps of Nižnánský’s novel. But I thank him for that. You see, I am allergic to Jožo’s “Čachtická Paní". Black and white, slap-dash nonsense. On one side terribly mean noblemen who don’t have anything better to do than spend sleepless nights thinking up how best to be mean to regular folks, not forgetting then to share their diabolical plans in a fit of crazy laughter to a poor woman who is of course sensible, moral, always honest and absolutely principled without any blemish on her. All this presented in a style that wouldn’t have gotten an F even in elementary school. Not to speak about the incredible frequency of clichéd sentences like “All around was thick forest and it was so dark that it could be cut with a knife." No, thank you. At least I found Jakubisko’s “realistic" version at least likeable, even though it is still the same legend, just inside out. Here, Elizabeth is portrayed almost like a saint and the only source of evil is Thurzó and his wife. So this has nothing to do with being realistic. Unfortunately Juraj chose to worst possible running time. It’s too short for what he wants to say. And it’s too long for what he should have wanted to say. His approach of including a bit of everything, resulting in nothing in the end just doesn’t work. He should have simply edited out anything that doesn’t directly concern the conflict between Báthory and Thurzó. Leaving everything else for a TV version lasting several hours. Among its strong points, I should certainly highlight the interior camerawork, the music, the costumes and the main cast (primarily Anna Friel and Karel Roden). However, the rest of it isn’t so great. And it’s a shame, because I wouldn’t hesitate to rate the main storyline very highly, while the rest of it (mainly the horrendous post-production dubbing and awful exterior camerawork) deserves barely two stars. And I would give zero stars for the Monks duo, utterly superfluous, combining the Name of the Rose with the ingenuity of the central pair from Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz a Guildenstern Are Dead". So a little higher than mediocre, hiding a diamond-tipped needle that you occasionally glimpse shining in the corner of your eye, but that immediately disappears again into a rotting haystack.

A Macho version of Not Without My Daughter. This movie reeks of classic tough French guys’ movies “one man against hundreds" with Belmondo or Delon (it reminds me most -maybe too much - of Cop’s Honor). But the reek is a bit stale. The uninteresting prolog (twenty-five minutes) and the epilog chip away at any positive impression you may have had. In reality this is good, but not outstanding; it begins to be so only after it moves to Paris. And there’s far too much talking, when the characters don’t have anything to say. If only they would take action instead. Another negative aspect is Maggie Grace, or rather her role. She is so unlikeable that I am surprised that anybody would think it worth letting loose such hell in the peaceful city on the Seine. But there are positive sides as well. I haven’t counted them, but one is worth mentioning. Liam Neeson. Who would have said that at 56 years old he would turn into such a tough guy. After today’s viewing I know that if there’s one person whose daughter would be inadvisable to kidnap, it’s Liam’s. Everybody else is just a band of brewed tea drinkers. If he had just a little more style, I would have nothing to fault him for. Morel almost too obviously relies on the fact that almost nobody makes movies like this nowadays, and so in the end the viewer forgives him for a lot.

Even my apartment is larger than the space where this slightly different western was filmed. Yes, it looks like a theatre play and yes, it has potential as a short, hard-hitting story, rather than a feature-length movie. But so what? Just petty complaints. Because Clint casted himself in the role of the biggest bastard that he has played throughout his rich career and evidently he enjoyed playing it enormously. Not even the “Good" from Leone’s masterpiece can equal the “my name isn’t important, I’m just here to rape, ridicule and shoot you" gunslinger in this movie. But that isn’t the main plus of the movie. The main plus lies in the textbook build-up of an atmosphere full of uncertainty and cynicism that easily makes up for the occasionally slow tempo. It’s so good that I’m disappointed that in his career as a director he never found the time to film a horror. The guy has the talent for it.

Although the title refers to a mere six-page short story, this is more like an adaptation of “The Festival" and “The Shadow over Innsmouth", with added fragments from Lovecraft’s other works. You have to give it to Gordon that here and there he managed to evoke the true “Cthulhu feeling". But that’s where the problem lies. Here and there, but not all the time. Most of the footage is just dreadfully boring.

A fair to middling relationship drama rudely grafted on to an ordinary and not particularly interesting episode that tries to prove that pedophilia is a virtue and that English is a beautiful language. Visually distinguishable from any other episode of the later series, but I have a weakness for snowy, Fargo-like backwaters, so that didn’t matter to me in the least. But Duchovny seemed like he didn’t know if he should act like good old Mulder or Hank Moody, and so he is neither. I’m not capable of objectively assessing Gillian’s performance, because I belong to the generation for whom The X-Files appeared on TV slap bang in the prime of my adolescence. Therefore her bosom and sex appeal are untouchable. Too bad that their “courting" scenes have completely disappears. Overall this is a boring affair about nothing that has a couple of excellent scenes (Scully visiting Connolly) and several lighter moments that work. Despite this, I didn’t leave the movie theater disappointed. Although I wasn’t totally satisfied either. Even so, I would welcome another, if possible higher quality, feature-length episode. Because the truth (and lots of God-chosen pedophiles) is still somewhere out there...

The descendants of William Wallace (aka Mel Gibson) and Mad Max (Gibson again, yuck, shame on you Mel!) in a version for 2035 dance a C-grade cancan at the Grindhouse club accompanied by the A-grade rhythm of “Známky punku" (Signs of Punk) by Czech punk band Visací zámek (Padlock). And I join in with Marshall and his crazed pogoing. I as keen as a little kid who’s going to meet Sponge Bob for the first time. The supposedly confused editing didn’t bother me (unlike The Descent) and so I would only fault the needlessly long foreplay to the crazy ride that starts at the precise moment when the first punk Mohawk appears. So don’t spit in this punk-rocker’s face, every movie appeals to somebody’s taste. And let’s hope Doomsday will appeal to enough people for Neil to attract some further projects to the future. It would be a shame to lose him, especially if he gave us more five-star sequences like the forty minutes from escaping from the platform through the adaptation of Twain’s Yankee from Connecticut to King Arthur’s court, all the way to the ending car chase in the Bentley.

This is Woody, but at the same time it isn’t Woody. It’s like something by some nastily cynical filmmaker who doesn’t have the best opinion about the current state of morality in Western society. This certainly is no regular Allen movie, but then again, I wouldn’t say that you can’t tell he made it. I’m not denying that I would rather have seen this on stage where imho it belongs, but then again I would be robbed of the opportunity of enjoying the traditionally great work of Philip Glass. But the music isn’t the best thing about this. The best thing is easily the central actor duo. Those two should act in something together again some time. Despite their different accents, they were convincing as brothers more than anybody else I’ve seen in recent times. So my fears that I would see more McGregor and Farrell than Ian and Terry were unfounded.