Othello

Now that was a B movie as it should be. Action, blood, pretty babes (Patricia Arquette hmmm), likable characters, and even the boobs are there. After the awful second one, this is often lined up next to Hellraiser 2 and it serves its purpose – to entertain.

A despotic anonymous regime carried out in constant meaningless celebrations, speeches, and gestures. Its representatives, degenerated by alcohol and permanent fear. The insecurity of everyone in their current position. The personalized camera capturing the events of a party infiltrated by undercover cops, where nobody knows how to talk to whom and what is really going on, is my favorite conception of communism as totally insane chaos and generator of mental illness under the surface.

The typical Hollywood sterile spectacle playing at being something more, which is spoiled by the dopey producer moves like African natives speaking English to each other, or off-screen killing. Worth mentioning are DiCaprio's fancy accent and some action scenes, but the whole thing is ruined by a disgustingly pathetic ending, which has simply always been Zwick's problem.

Hahaha that was just incredible. I watched it at the Brutal Assault horror festival booth and you can imagine what it looked like when Britney Spears died. Otherwise, the movie has some really strong jokes and Chucky is truly brilliant. I'm glad the filmmakers understood that they couldn't take a movie about a murdering doll seriously.

The soundtrack of the film takes on incredible power, namely the voices and monologues spoken by "other" (deeper) voices, and the disturbing underscore, where the final chopped up song wins out and the film really offers an emotion that few expected from such madness – emotion and wonder.

That made me laugh. Agitation of the heaviest category, perhaps still excusable in its day, but so brilliantly filmed in places (The Stairs of Odessa) that it cannot be dismissed. Whenever there was any text I was bursting into loud laughter and the bestial catchphrase "Let's go! Let's beg them!" brought tears to my eyes.

My view of the situation hasn't changed, just gotten a little richer. The rawness of the imagery was evocative and some of the scenes (the drowning of the child, the mine – I was scared as a little bitch) were truly unique, but any film that tells the story of stranded little bastards will never have much hope of success with me. A solid 3 stars.

Subjectively, it's not a five-star film. Wanted would have had to do more fucking and shooting heads instead of explaining why they were doing it in the first place, it's just that in terms of a multiplex blockbuster, Bekmambetov's work is a real evolution for several reasons. 1) It clearly demonstrates how an action movie can combine a good dose of blood and violence. 2) It has the balls to tell off people who have spent considerable resources to see it, see the keyboard scene or the hero's last line ("And what the fuck have you done lately? " – they watched Wanted). 3) While in other movies the hero emerges from his personal shit (school loser – Kick-Ass, Spider-Man; personal trauma – Batman), Wesley's naked self emerges in Wanted from the shit that all of society is in. So while Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, and the like are different before they turn into supermen, Wesley Gibson is just like all of us and rises from that state. In fact, he's kind of the subconscious hero in all of us. 4) Morgan Freeman says "Shoot that motherfucker!" 5) The basic existential question is said in front of an ATM machine at the end – which is very much true to life. -) 6) I started to like Angelina Jolie. 7) Civilization's mental "illnesses" (bouts of stress, awareness, apathy) are presented here as the germs of superpowers, and thus Wanted gives hope that my inability to concentrate, distractibility, and forgetfulness will also one day allow me to punch through metal railings, dodge bullets or massacre 400-pound fighters...

Brass's Caligula is overly pap and theatrical, but quite impressive in its depiction of the utter decline of humanity caused by power.

A formally brilliant, but content-wise a bit limp masterpiece.