Zíza

Haha, the way I rated it, suddenly red was blue. :-D Will it hold up? If I hadn't gone to the FilmBooster screening, but bought a ticket normally, I'd probably have mourned it at the end of the movie, thinking that maybe a McDonald’s love-in-a-bun would have been money better spent. It's not a complete disaster, but the story is thinner than a stool in dysentery, the characters are flatter than Voldy's nose, and the best part of the whole film is the fight scenes, the bulk of which can, of course, be described as follows: Hop here, hop there, the bad guy gets cut, yells ouch but is no longer hampered by his injuries, hop here, hop there, slice slice and the bad guy is dead. The film is very instructive though, because by the end you know that the only way to take on witches is with a flamethrower. Another plus was Jeff Bridges, his "rich baritone" (so it didn't matter what he said) and now and then he said a corny line to make us laugh (and we did laugh, but many were obviously ashamed of it and so only gave the film one star or the trash can). And quite nice effects. What was it about?!

Sakurai was fine, Tappei was fine, but I pretty much spent the majority of the series hating Shio. I just don't like these kind of characters – acting like a teenage girl making mountains out of molehills at 30. I just don't. Nakajima and Kawaguchi were nice distractions there, but even then, I still found them to just be dead weight at times. It's not a terrible series, but there's no point in expecting anything from it either. Within certain limits, the acting wasn't bad (but you could see a lot of the difference between the younger and older generations). I liked the opening. A better 2 stars.

A series that is definitely not watchable in bursts of more than 10 episodes at a time. But it's exactly the kind of series that you put on for dinner, once a week, when you get the urge to take a train into space to some planet, and it doesn't matter what episode you put on, because it's an episodic story (sometimes split into two episodes) that doesn't culminate until the very end. But the stories from the different planets Maetel and Tetsudō visited weren't uninteresting, even though it was still revolving around the same plot (someone kidnapped Tetsudō/Maetel/passy, or they helped rescue someone from the planet, etc). But if you don't get more than an episode or two in a day, it doesn't matter at all. Plus I found the animation very appealing (although the female characters looked like a carbon copy, just with different hair/hairstyles). A nice sci-fi classic year round.

Unfortunately, I didn't think Ryoko was particularly doing his best here (the difference between daughter and mother, aside from a few very distinct gestures – like scratching her father under the chin – and the outfit, just wasn't visible at all), and unfortunately I just wasn’t impressed with how good she looked. Moreover, I found the film incredibly long and almost about nothing, I felt absolutely nothing from it; and that's a mistake, because the situation at hand is, after all, very psychologically challenging, isn't it? It's just that I didn't get that from their performance at all. The other weakness was that I kind of knew what was going on the whole time and how it was going to play out. And it actually did. EDIT: I went to see this in the cinema as part of Prague’s Eiga-sai film festival. I have to raise it by one more star – good subtitles really do work wonders. Or maybe it was the big screen. Anyway, I found it a bit better than the first viewing, though it still felt a bit too stretched out.

A relaxing film that not only entertains, but boasts some beautiful shots of the Japanese countryside, and not the typically known one, either – as it's not full of rice paddies, but tall trees. I enjoyed it, there was no pathetic bullshit, the acting was excellent (especially Sometani, the guy is so ordinary that it's a joy to watch him and enjoy that he can act). As is usually the case with the Japanese, this is not purely a comedy, but the story also shows the viewer life in a Japanese village, the traditions and the still different mindset and values from the people in the city. As they say: it has reach. The film made a beautifully coherent impression on me when the viewer really sees the change in Hiran (not to mention that this change was expressed very well in how the camera was shot). A nice film about an insanely proud prince. A strong 4 stars.

I debated for a long time whether to rate the film with two stars or one. In the end I realized it was weaker than the anime, so I decided there was no point in rating it the same. Even though the story is the same, it's delivered worse, and the dialogue is very weak, almost embarrassing I would say. The acting... well, it's a school romance after all, so you can't expect miracles, but at times it was never even average. Probably the worst movie of its type I've seen. Such a pity.

Vanessa's character strikes me as a shallow little lady who thinks she's better than everyone else, although apparently the filmmakers tried to portray her somewhat differently, even so her character was just a false facade to me. In other words, Vanessa can't act. What’s sad is that the best thing about the movies is the soundtrack and Kyle's disfigurement, otherwise it sucks. Full of holes. Crawling with moths. And worms. On the leg of a corpse.

I've never been to a Superman movie; the capes, red panties, and blue leotard... well, it's not my cup of tea. So I went into it expecting nothing, and didn’t really get anything – just a nice guy acting like a savior. The effects didn't blow me away, the story didn't either, but in a way it was watchable (not so much to listen to, sometimes those speeches sound better on paper) and you were really interested in a scene here and there. I don't know why, but I enjoyed Kevin Costner the most. I must be getting old. A weaker 3 stars.

It's 4 stars by a hair; it's not a gem, but somehow it always fit my mood. Plus there's a lot of great actors, so it's still something to watch. Not to mention that my knowledge of Japanese history gave it an extra dimension that someone who knows absolutely nothing about it won't get (just what new name the real Nobunaga chooses, or the character portrayed by Yamada Takayuki, or the behavior of Tokugawa – just made my academic heart sing and gave it a heart attack). Plus, I enjoyed it on the whole, I wasn't bored, so it served its purpose.

The child actors here are not awful, on the contrary, it really shows that they went to the trouble of selecting the "best" for us. In the end, the story wasn't even as horrendous as all those reports from Japan and the lawsuit from the orphanage are trying to present it, claiming that this isn't the way things work and that it only undermines their authority (in short), when in the end it seems to me quite the opposite. It's an ordinary story, dramatized with not-so-original elements, but it doesn't come across as clichéd. It manages to move, even to make you laugh; it's not long, so it's a kind of a rainy day series. If you want to see a dramatic version of how kids get sent to an orphanage and from there back to a foster family (or back to their real parents), this will do it for you. Plus, it's one of the most searched series on the Japanese internet from 2014, so maybe someone might want to see it for that reason alone.