Marigold

A teenage One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in robotic Ninja underpants. A stupid shooter with a bunch of affected chicks in suspenders, acting as if they are in a cheap American porno, framed by a kind of pseudo-spiritual chatter about the power of man. What really disappoints me is the fact that Zack's visual montages are bombastic, but they completely miss the point – I don't know if it's their non-originality or that they are terrible self-serving, but Sucker Punch seems to me to be a wasteful mess that obscures the complete absence of soul with excess effects. It just confirms that Snyder is an excellent short film maker (although Sucker Punch lags behind the rest of his work in this regard) and that he leads the actors very benevolently – as long as he has solid material in front of the camera, it disappears, but once those revived teenage fantasies ring out, the result is disastrous. One advantage of this nonsense is that Watchmen seems like an even bigger miracle to me. But that's it (I curse myself now that I gave 300 such a low score...). P.S. The unreliable narrator has never been as unreliable as in this film (which takes away all his credit and effect).

The biggest surprise in years. I don't really like Snyder (300 will confirm that) and I don't know the comic books, so this seemed to be a first-class head-on collision. But after completing three hours and thirty-five minutes in the Watchmen world, I'm just in awe. I'm in awe of the narrative structure Snyder chose, how he chose rich mythology over a straightforward plot, I'm in awe of the depth of the individual characters, I'm in awe of the absolutely brilliant compositions (Hollis's last duel, in which he projects the glorious strokes of his life, Rorschach's conversion into a mask in the lair of a pedophile), I'm in awe of how Snyder transformed the indigestible fetishism and effectiveness into an incredibly coherent and aesthetically polished whole (the title sequence rolls radically, I'm speechless), I'm in awe of the inclusion of the pure comic book insert Black Freighter, which fantastically resonates with the overall tuning of the film... I'm in awe, even though there's a few unnecessary shots, a couple of deranged ties and unnecessary masturbation. I'm in awe of a film which I rank, alongside Nolan's Batman films, among the top three comic book movies that have ever hit the silver screen. I don't even know if I'm sad that I didn't see it in the movie theatre, because those nearly four hours of TV were almost a spiritual experience of pure ecstasy from post-modern mythology...

An incredibly inventive and technically-strong camera (those seamless vertigo "falls" through the city are the biggest treat I've seen since Enter The Void), the excellent Bradley Cooper, who shows the breadth of his acting portfolio, and a very interesting premise about a drug that unlocks the hidden potential of your brain. Thriller of the year? I'm afraid not. The script is only interesting until the opening scene is connected with retrospective storytelling, and from that moment on it is stretched, dull and completely devoid of the "dark side of power". If some pharmaceutical company's logo with the slogan "If you don’t take it you are missing out" lit up behind the dull resolution, I wouldn't be surprised. Unfortunately, the endgame messes up the whole thing and explains why Limitless can never step out of the circle and be truly riveting. The film is horribly modified, and instead of slashing into the living, it runs away through the screenwriting to trouble-free ends. I enjoyed it, but in this form, it's one of many... Despite the fact that Burger is undoubtedly a very handy craftsman. [65%]

It’s sad that Padilho's radical critique of the system immediately mixes with fascism and other disliked isms. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is exactly the kind of action movie that we don't see much of in mainstream production - it is fully saying that the system is fucked, it points this out in detail and goes so far that it doesn't end up sweeping it under the rug like a figment of a deranged hero (Law Abiding Citizen), but stands by what it believes in with the full weight of its powerful visual musculature. It's Greengrass-style and even more refined than the first film. The issues are the same: Padilha is a brilliant stylist, but a worse storyteller, so the cadence of dialogue and the influx of information are suffocating, and someone who doesn't speak Portuguese drowns in it. Otherwise, it's a complete film in all aspects that I like for how hard and implacable it is. Rather than fascism, the notion of anarchy sometimes creeped in. As with the first film, I don't have a single problem with this film, if only because what we see is sometimes not fully consistent with what Nacimiento, as the protagonist and narrator, grumbles about in the voiceover. I have no idea to what extent the film resonates with the reality of contemporary Brazil, but I have no illusions that it would only be a radical forgery. We know our Pappenheims.

Milius is a bit of a schizophrenic who tries to make a convincing point about things that didn't happen... Red Dawn is an attempt to imitate a heroic war movie - it just praises the heroes of a non-existent war with all seriousness and ceremony, which is not explicitly ridiculous, but ultimately just so strangely naïve (like a child playing with tin soldiers and mourning the death of one of them). Trying to plastically describe the partisan conflict between American teenagers and Soviet-Cuban aggressors is meaningless as a mere premise (unless we want to label it propaganda by its very nature), and if the whole thing were more excessive, it would undoubtedly be much more fun. But the authenticity game gets boring after a while, and Patrick Swayze's heartfelt rubberness doesn't help either. The ending totally misses the mark, and its paranoid tearfulness can only be attributed to the apparitions of the Cold War. A hopelessly expired film, although dyed-in-the-wool Republicans and NRA members may still be burning their calves... "Often feels like a Republican wet dream manifested into a surrealistic Orwellian nightmare". I'll scratch my name under that testimony.

At first, I didn't mind Boyle's superficiality at all. The production is admirably conservative, and with the help of a few "Boyle" trips (locomotive, birds), it brings only technically precise and quite virtuoso acting creations with a few almost brilliant moments in which Boyle was able to express, with a minimum of means, grandiose things that have moved science and art for centuries. Apropos, Benedict Cumberbatch is a god... that is definitive.

Such a colorful mausoleum of Václav Havel. The film is so terribly overloaded with intentional absurdity, tastelessness and diverse influences that any sting of the original text disappears in it and, unfortunately, its meaning is equally flawed. It is exactly the same syndrome that the Theatre on the Balustrade is dealing with after the death of Petr Lébl. Mixing Chekhov, Shakespeare, a Western, the First Republic, totalitarianism, entrepreneurial Baroque and many other ingredients so that the result has a clear meaning and really says something... that is the prerogative of great directors. And that's just not what Havel (with all due respect to him) is. Leaving is quite cute and fun in places, but as a whole it feels colorless and unnecessary. I don't know what the poet was saying - although otherwise, I like his verses very much.

Three reasons why our fellow countrymen should see Draquila - Italy Trembles: 1. A clear and factual cover-up of how democracy can serve as a front for totalitarianism (Berlusconism), 2. A model demonstration of how easy and unproblematic it is for some (numerous) individuals to exist in an apparently normalized society, 3. Technically brilliantly crafted, lively, with excellent musical undertone and an exclusive camera... Sabina Guzzanti did a great job, and anyone who thinks it's about "just those crazy Italians" should look around from time to time. The illusion of "cheap freedom for all at a price" can easily serve as a veil of vulgar and populist manipulation, behind which stands lawbreaking and the world of crime. I am under no illusion that there are no such locally diminished political miracles to be found in the Czech Republic.

A grandiose contribution to the giant weird films about capitalist realism, covered with a very sparse "docu-camera" veil and a dynamic war action ala Black Hawk Down. Except for the occasionally successful Scott / Bigelow thefts, Liebesman has completely failed - the film is absolutely dysfunctional, uninteresting, completely devoid of emotion and literally overflowing with hellish dialogues that stick repulsively in the chosen pseudo-authentic tone of storytelling (... the U.S. didn't sponsor the film. Marine Corps by chance?). Sometimes the visual (repulsive digital characters) creaks a lot, but it disappears in the cacophony of all the components. A movie with no balls, no rhyme, no reason, no magic. Perfect filling of the epic fail box. Did anyone even read the script before they approved the budget? P.S. For nitpickers... Capitalist realism is not my idea, but a commonly used term - it really works for propaganda films such as Independence Day or Battle Los Angeles (threats to democratic values by primitive destructive force from the unknown, military leaders or politicians who lead the collective unwaveringly to victory...) Ideology lives long and blissfully...

Typical Verbinski. The ideas are pressurized to burst, in a matter of minutes it's able to pulverize Leone, Coppola and Bay together, and it just burps lightly. It's much more functional as a Western ensemble than as a film. The scattering of the individual parts is even surreally generous, so the resulting impression is somewhat restless. With the addition of Czech dubbing, I will have to take away the fifth star, which does not change the fact that it is probably the animated highlight of the season.