DaViD´82

A truly family movie. Mandatory for all kids, so they can see what unavoidably awaits them and that nobody has it easy with adults, the same way as no adults have it easy with kids. But also mandatory for all adults as a reminder that they were no different and that kids don’t have it easy with adults, in the same way that they don’t have it easy with them. Simply a twenty-year long study of one family “as time goes by"; no big dramas, nothing forced. Quite the opposite: central to it is work with the atmosphere of down-to-earth everydayness without any stress on drama, without coming across too unremarkable, boring or routine at any point during the almost three hours that the movie runs. It’s about the joys and trials of a regular boy; nothing more, nothing less. But the truth is that the closing, high school phase is perhaps too ordinary, the same as due to the scope of the focus some themes/storylines remain loose ends and, yes, Mason didn’t have to be some a douche as an adolescent, but... But even so, I sincerely hope that, like he did with “Before This and Before That" Linklater will return to Mason’s fates strictly every twelve years.

One day, Catholic cop Sarchie got blind drunk and had a fit at the jukebox playing The Doors. And now there’s a humorous police crime buddy exorcist horror “inspired by true events" where, thanks to the width of the genre, you don’t get clichés you’ve seen a hundred times over from just one or two, but from three genres at once. So situations arise where separate clichés meet in clashing combinations and create something completely new, often bizarre or downright ridiculous, but always (however unintentionally) entertaining. If only it could decide what it wants to be, if it were shorter, if only it didn’t run off naively into ridiculous situations (welcome to the tomb with the twisting Morrison or the furry owl) if only the frights weren’t so cheap and pre-warned, if only Ramírez had at least a pinch of charisma, if only McHale weren’t Jeff from Community, if only this, if only that, this could have been good, very good. Unfortunately, there are too many “if only"s for one picture.

The topic, the cast, the creators, the production design and the chosen style promise great things. But this sham nickel-and-dime, Hammer-style League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which could feel at home in the company of the Victorian episodes of Doctor Who, despite its many undeniable qualities, does little more than promise; however much it is pleasantly peculiar in all circumstances and almost unprecedentedly true to its literary source. It can never permanently move up from the “promises on paper" box to the “fulfilled promises" box, even though it peeks into it at times. But it’s these passages that do more of a disservice than anything else to the series because while you are watching you can see how damn good it could have been. Which of course doesn’t mean that it isn’t good enough.

The Raid 2 is for contact action movies what Heat is for he crime movies, what The Dark Knight is for comic book movies, what Once Upon a Time in the West is for westerns and what The Shining is for horror movies. Basically, a genre movie that breaks down the boundaries of this “ignoble" movie genre. It is the plot that’s the most surprising about part two. Yes, really, the plot, something that last time didn’t even figure as essential stuffing, simply because it chose to be nonexistent. This time we have a plot good enough to stand alone even without all that neat action stuff. This time it is a broad uncompromising dirty Hong Kong-style gangster movie that reminds you of Internal Affairs etc. and where the motivations and emotions make sense. In any case, most viewers will just be watching it for the action scenes anyway. And the pleasing thing about it is that even though the choreography was extremely ambitious (and very gory) offering incredible crowd scenes as well as extreme “face to face" fight scenes, it really hurts (the characters and the viewer; especially the final fight scene in the spotlessly white kitchen) and it’s made without any fancy stuff; no tough-guy lines or hyperbole, no shaking camera hand in hand with machinegun editing to cover imperfections and punches that missed, no wires and obvious CGI, but everything nice and clear using long (really long) takes. So, while the rather monotonous part one contained quite a few scenes that were worth watching more than once, here the whole two-and-a-half hour movie is worth your while to watch more than once. And with a movie where everybody’s hitting everybody else all the time, that is the best possible recommendation.

The weakest of Cavay’s chase thrillers and so they could marketed as "Mea Culpa, I have sinned". However, in this case, the weakest doesn’t mean weak at all. It’s just undecided, as if the author didn’t know whether to go for the more intimate style that he introduced in Anything for Her or the murderous, berserk style of Point Blank. And so it first tries to concentrate on the characters and their moods, which works if you turn a blind eye or two, but you get to understand the balance of power “this one is like this and that one is like that" in the first ten minutes. Plus, it isn’t clear for the first half what is going to happen (if you haven’t read the synopsis) and what is at stake becomes clear only immediately before the turning point when Lindon is at last able to add to his repertoire of stubborn silence and leather jacket with a look saying “you touched my son, I’m gonna touch your life". And from that moment on it flips over into nonstop action. And you don’t find many others as good at ingenious, real to life within the limits of the genre, uncompromising, different, wisecrack and CGI free, non-shaky and non-confusing action scenes as Cavayé. You get a taste of this from the opening gourmet three in a car fight, but it certainly doesn’t all end there; you just have to wait a while for seconds. And of course it applies that the characters behave a the genre dictates; like dumb asses, but that is all part of it, take it or leave it.

Dark Souls? Aliens? Groundhog Day? Starship Troopers? Source Code? The Twilight Zone? Saving Private Ryan? All of the above (and not nearly just them) are clearly recognizable in this movie. Fundamentally, this has it all - almost - just a respectable and proper ending is missing. However, the mandatory blockbuster inoffensive finale is luckily preceded by a sufficiently playful and peculiar cocktail of the aforementioned ingredients and not just a mere distillation of what you have already seen countless times elsewhere.

If you know the duo Penn & Teller, then at the beginning you can’t help thinking that this would be a spoof documentary, because this magic-debunking duo bring us this documentary “about revealing the mystery behind Vermeer’s exquisite style through a record of an experiment by a talentless billionaire inventor who has a crazy theory that would fundamentally change the opinion about the works of one of the greatest painters of all time, and at the same time, this talentless billionaire inventor is building a movie set in his garage in Texas so that, after several months of intricate work on a reproduction of The Music Lesson, he can prove his theory " isn’t very trust inspiring. Especially if this is all about filming the painting of a picture, therefore basically a very thankless and boring activity. You might easily expect them to be making fun of the audience, but... But no, it’s a real documentary and so good that it tempts even the greatest daubers among us to pull out some black and white photos, buying a dental mirror on a stick, brushes, paints and to try if it really works. In any case, apart from potential (re)discovery of an interesting painting by numbers-type technique, this is mainly the powerful story of Tim Jenison who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice a good few years of his life doing incredibly meticulous work with an unsure result. Without a grant. Although with a couple of billion tucked away.

Calling this British Fargo is as misleading as it is oversimplifying, but you know how it is... No smoke without fire. The mutual similarity lies not just in the concept itself or in disruption of the everyday routine of a back-water town, but also in the fact that this cuts deep into all of the characters who behave “like your neighbors". And this is why the convincing events “the evil inside each of us" is so chillingly disconcerting. It was brave (and controversial) to change the style and the genre during the final two episodes when the uncompromising psycho crime thriller turns into an uptight, intimate psychological drama where there is no room for the crime storyline. But it doesn’t matter, because this is not fundamentally about the crime as such, but the characters caught up in its whirlpool. | S1: 5/5 | S2: 5/5 |

Ninety minutes of pure "Hitchcock-like" genre enthusiasm. Why then only three stars? Because, after all, it has not only ninety minutes, but also a final fifteen minutes that leaves even an unsound mind standing still; let alone a sound one. From the speech on, everything is wrong. Everything.

Hollywood’s dogs and cats baked a cake where they wanted to include everything and everyone across universes, time, and space. And as a result, there is no space or time on the screen for anything or anyone. Everything is so rushed that what was the biggest strength of X-Men until now, completely vanishes. I mean the exploration of the characters, their development, their fears, their relationships with each other and the resulting emotions. Here, everyone is invariably relegated to the roles of emotionless puppets reciting big words, interrupted here and there by some mandatory blockbuster action. Moreover, the action is only there for its own sake; which doesn't mean it's bad in itself because it's not. Singer bit off more than he could chew, which is even more of a shame because now and then there is a flash of genius (mostly thanks to the cast), that shows how good it could have been if someone in charge realized that less is sometimes much more.