DaViD´82

S1: "Oliver Hughes" (4/5): It is very nice in terms of its civility of simple cheap recombination and fabricated twists, and even more because of how consistent the approach "it can happen to you too" is. And given the pitfalls of the topic of losing a single child, it's surprisingly non-melodramatic and emotionally-draining. And despite all the cold atmosphere of utter chaos, depression and hopelessness, it's not emotionally cold or cynical. In addition, it is an unprecedentedly successful symbiosis of the Scandinavian approach to the genre, in which the barriers between personal drama and criminal sequences are completely blurred. The playwright can do with the fact that people are ... Just people, in other words, there is neither conspiracy nor unnatural big revelations. Nevertheless, I have one reservation; namely, narration through an intertwined "present/years ago" approach, which is generally beneficial and not only a cheap way to stretch the plot to more episodes, but still only about half of the season parts "years ago" often tread the water unnecessarily and it keeps moving forward only thanks to the line from the present. And by far the best is the ending itself, which gets stuck under the skin like almost anything else in this genre. S2: "Webster/Giroux" (3/5): Civility has given way to the will of recombination and offers redemption; that is something completely unknown. Anyway, it's not bad either. It still has a first-class cast, it's emotional not in a cheap way and the topics of losing a child are addressed skillfully (and above all differently). The length is the biggest drawback, as eight episodes are unjustified. And nothing proves it better than the Iraqi troubles covering four episodes, so that the result is something that can be done with a twenty-second phone call.

A Christmas special that, through Sandman-like facehuggers, attempts something quite similar to an episode of Amy's Choice back in the day. However, despite the undeniable qualities of this Holiday Alien Beginning, it managed to do it better; and more subtly.

What? What? ¿Qué? Bilingual teaching of English/Spanish for the youngest through short animated adventures of a cynical lazy cat and a hyperactive dog. The first episodes from 2004 are horrible, but the new ones, which have been created since 2009, are on the contrary nicely shot, cute animated and entertaining (considering that it's for kids). However, all this is in our region given to a higher trilingual level, because it runs in the original bilingual version with Czech subtitles; which is somewhat "wtf" when it is exclusively for children before school age.

First, the creators dedicate the introductory third of the miniseries to the exposition of the main and not at all stupid concept and the world, and they will launch interesting conflicts and lines in it. And it's great and it is also a follow-up to other events. In the second third, however, they do not continue to do so nor develop it. And what's worse, they don't even work with what they've laid the groundwork for and they are happy with flogging the already dead genre horse that almost becomes B-rate movie from the production of 90s. But at least it's bearable, if nothing else. In the final third, the creative team already choses the "we do not care at all" approach and jumps into the unintentionally ridiculous C-rate waters (" in term of story and dialogs"" even from the acting point of view, when especially the central girl should be punished for her non-acting and the physical pain she causes the audience), when you even do not have time to hit the table by your head out of despair. And it is unbearable and stupid.

Perhaps even in the time of the controversial "Bush" administration there was no doubt that real decision-making power was in Dick Cheney's hands, for whom Bush was only a necessary evil. That is, no matter what you think about (everything) capable Cheney and his unprecedented steps, ways, opinions and power, there is no denying that his view of these very steps, by which he largely shaped the contemporary world, is inevitably and extremely interesting. This is despite the form of only talking heads (Cheney or his political partners, rivals and people putting the events into context) combined with commentary accompanied by archival footage. This is particularly interesting in combination with Bush's memoirs, the current report of the Senate Committee of Inquiry (not only) on CIA methods, Morris's portrait of Rumsfeld and, to some extent, the overseas version of the House of Cards.

Netflix and Weinsteins have decided that they also want their variation on the Game of Thrones/Vikings/Borgia. So they took tens of millions of dollars, went to many continents, spared no effort on the set, backdrops or costumes, and created a series that is based on the same foundations as successful (pseudo) historical series of competition; that is, conspiracy (and sex), black and white characters (and sex), fights and battles (and sex), behind-the-scenes intrigues (and sex), naked girls and sex. They cleverly headed into the department that offers a considerable degree of freedom, exoticism and attractiveness of a stormy time full of change. But in order not to let Western viewer say "why look at a bunch of intriguing Asians, it is covered by a legend about Marco Polo (who plays the role of Blackthorne of Clavell Shogun), although it soon becomes clear that he is not someone who would interest the screenwriters in the first place, and so he mostly just wanders, has nothing to do (unless he is just having sex) and here and there he teaches a kung fu lesson to a blind Zen wisdom-uttering master. After all, this is another problematic aspect; on the one hand, the creators are building (mostly successfully, however slowly) a serious drama full of intrigue and behind-the-scenes power games, and on the other hand, they cannot do without two to three over the top moments in each episode that would probably fit into something à la 300. And so there are many slow-motion scenes, a naked girl jumping into the air like a gymnast and slaughtering fully armed guards, etc. It's filmed in an eye-pleasing way, but it doesn't fit into the overall concept of the series. It's filmed in an eye-pleasing way, but it doesn't fit into the overall concept of the series. Also, the characters and dialogs are not written as well (not to be confused with poorly) as the current leaders of the genre, i.e. the cast doesn't have much to perform at first (the first episodes are purely based on Benedict Wong), which goes hand in hand with a rather slow start. Before something really happens and something goes on, there is something to look at and something to enjoy visually, but that's all. However, as soon as it passes the middle of the series and settles, it must be acknowledged that the creators managed to approach the quality of their competing originals. And who knows, for example, in the coming seasons they will go one step further and even fully match them; thanks to the second half, the foundations are laid solid for this.| S1: 3/5 |

Rather than reconstructing events, it acts as a celebration of General Dal Chiesa's legacy and his struggle with mafia-bureaucratic wind mills. It seems more like it was created to arouse passions and force the people and the government to take action, rather than to only watch and do nothing. Which is a tax for the creation barely a few months from the displayed events. Thus, there is a noticeable lack of distance and information (especially in the passages "from the tent of the mafia" and from government circles) and so it is quite general and in the course of footage it pays more and more attention to the melodramatic personal line at the expense of the raw reconstruction, that took place in the first half. But it's not bad in any way. I would just rather see the same material and theme elaborated a few years later (and also with the same team and director) and more in depth. But it would have been without Ventura, and it would be an eternal pity to deprive him of such a grateful and charismatic role.

The Hobbit without the Hobbit or in other word the journey there and back. More than ever, the third movie of Hobbit is the result of two directors working together. The first one (let's call him PJ, for example), who understands the characters, the conflicts between them and in them, and can do with precisely cast actors. Once Bilbo, Thorin or Gandalf are on screen alone, it works in a way that often brings the best and most impressive moments from both trilogies. But then there is another director (let's call him CGI PJ, for example), who has poor taste and makes everything over-the-top. And he constantly has coffee breaks lasting (too) long time instead of working and let the computers do the job. In scenes where effects serve events or scenes, there are no reservations. But in scenes packed with effect with no particular reason or where the effect are over-the-top as in the case of (unfortunately not by far only) wannabe cool fun with Legolas’ female elf, the I almost feel ashamed of CGI PJ. In scenes where PJ has managed with ten seconds of "cool Legolas" in the past, CGI PJ needs at leas ten minutes. Fortunately, the work of the first one still prevails in the movie, but after all, the percentage of (poor) taste is rather questionable. On top of that, what is even more striking this time that many things are missing and will be added only in the extended version. Everything that has to do with action was prioritized at the expense of characters, motivations and similar "redundancies". A typical example is the ending. There is an impressive battle lasting couple of minutes but there is no effect and after that one quiet scene with sad Bilbo and Gandalf smoking a pipe does the talking and everything becomes clear. And this applies to everything in this part. The extended version is then interesting mainly in the fact that it underlines both of the opposite approaches. So, there are many more glorious character moments, as well as more of that depersonalized over-the-top CGI action.

I had great fun from time to time rather than having a lot of fun all the time. In fact, the question is to what extant is this very specific (un) balance "so-called a detective story/so-called children's holiday adventure/so-called absurd take-seriously-comedy" suitable for this. Although many "funny" scenes are nice and are not highlighted can rightly aim for a cult status (yes, for example, the scene in the church at the end of the first episode), but apart from that, Dumont interprets in an absolutely new way the saying "repeated joke is not a joke". After all, in some cases, watching a lame running gag and episodes full of fillers all the time is like a torture sometimes. And the footage... Why isn't it just a feature-film with a typical footage? Shortening the movie would only be beneficial. That is for sure.

An excellent 80s neo-retro-noir (the music!) that somewhat suffers from the strict and slavish "Cape Fear - 8mm - Peckinpah" division into thirds, which results in the loss of that initial consistent play on atmosphere, psychology and believable behaviour in the second half.