J*A*S*M

A very pleasant surprise. A group of students are making a documentary about Mexican refugees and, as it’s usual in the genre, they get into trouble. No, they don’t get lost in the forest, they get in conflict with some kind of radical organisation that solves the immigrant problem in their own (radical) way. The static documentary format blends with live found footage, and from to time it’s shot like a normal feature film. Undocumented knows how use the best of these strategies while avoiding their shortcomings and limitations. The result is an original and tense film with a format that doesn’t grind but entertains. Thematically, Undocumented forms an interesting trio with the recent (and equally good) Territories and Red State. Make yourself some time and watch all three at once.

Pilot: American Horror Story came out of nowhere. Until the day the pilot was out, I didn’t have any detailed information about it. When foreign horror websites wrote about it, I didn’t pay attention to the articles because the title made be expect some kind of documentary (like, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film). Under these circumstances, I didn’t have time to get sufficiently excited and maybe that’s why I liked the pilot more than if I’d been expecting something great. So far, it feels like Twin Peaks in a B-movie package. The cold opening is fantastically scary and the rest of the episode is entertainingly unsettling. I’m very curious about what aces the creators have up their sleeves, because stretching a haunted house story to the length of a TV series won’t be easy. There are two things that bother me: the character of Ben and that the scenes don’t link with each other very well – I’ve no idea whether the first episode takes place during a week, a month, or even more… The rating is provisional, I feel that with the remaining episodes the series can either drop to three or go up to five :) 1st season: So, it held to four. I liked the interesting characters and the story as a whole, which exploited everything it could out of the trodden premise of a haunted house, especially considering it is a twelve-episode series. If there’s one thing to complain about is that we didn’t get that many horror moments. But thumbs up. The last episode was a beautiful farewell to the characters and I’m looking forward to the second season, which will be about something completely different.

Very good. Beautifully shot, fairly slow and top of the range performances. Someone had a vision here, wanted to say something (though nothing revolutionary) and went for it. Territories is not the most gratifying kind of film, in the last half hour it makes a turn into something that you wouldn’t expect from your typical exploitation flick. There’s no naturalistic violence, nor is there a brutal climax, just a sad and uncertain point behind the fate of five likeable people. I liked the ending very much, it was the decisive factor for the four stars. I probably won’t remember it after a couple of months, but it resonated with me a while after the screening. Thumbs certainly up.

Red State has the misfortune of not having much of a chance to appeal to the only two groups of viewers that would like to watch it. Kevin Smith’s fans like his films mainly because of the humour, not the ideology. Smith's criticism of everything is, as expected, very ubiquitous and the film pulls no punches, but the humour is present only in trace amounts – for instance, when you chuckle at one of the characters and say “what a douchebag”. Horror fans won’t find much, either. But if you’re willing to appreciate the excellent technical aspect, the ingenious structure of the story, the alternation of genres (the most accurate description: a religious-political dramatic thriller with action passages and a pinch of exploitation horror), etc., you will be satisfied. Red State is by no means original or ingenious, but in a time when ideology has almost disappeared from movies, I’m happy to see even a little of it (even though I can’t say I subscribe to the critical message).

A very vulgar film with female leads that in real life would be insufferable, but, as it’s usual with Apatow, the humour is effective and the emotions are genuine. Something that Czech comedies for the common folk can only dream about.

Not very pretty characters, decent performances, a corpse here and there, gloomy atmosphere, alternating time lines, slow narrative pace, often out of focus, shaky camera… indie like from a template. I can’t say I’m a fan of this type of genre flicks, but I really liked A Horrible Way to Die, and by the end I was not too far from feeling thrilled. Judging by IMDB, director Adam Wingard is very industrious and I’m curious about his other films (You’re Next, for instance, is into this year’s Toronto Midnight Madness).

Where Frank was always doing something in the first part (meaning actively getting in trouble), in the second part, Tony goes through life without much a do, because he’s such a waste that he wouldn’t even try to do anything. Once again, Refn’s look into the gutters of society feels extraordinarily authentic, to the point that it was almost unpleasant to watch that existence. The ending is impressive.

Entertaining silliness, it was more fun than last year’s Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Loads of one-liners, pretty likeable characters and a cool monster with shining teeth. Thumbs certainly up, we get good comedies like this only once or twice a year, no more than that.

A fantastically made mysterious thriller with a perfect depressive atmosphere. Some of the scenes have so much tension that it’s almost tangible. That this film follows David Lynch’s model and can’t be exactly understood, that’s another thing… In most films like this, the trickiness can be attributed to an unreliable narrator, which here is a bit of a problem because everything we see is told from the point of view of the main character. Personally, I feel that this is to some extent the irrationalisation of a rational detective investigation through the rationalisation of the irrational ideas of a deranged “detective”. As a result, the shifts in the investigation take place randomly and related events in the plot are lacking a logic coherence. But who knows… Either way, it was nice to watch.

Spielberg 101? No way, this is a far more advanced class. Apart from the final emotions between parents and children, everything works in this film. What surprised me the most was how likeable the kids are, and their good performances – especially Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney. If Abrams made a serious sci-fi thriller with the same skill, I would be jumping in joy, even higher than now, but this badass E.T. phone home is just great. You won’t see hectolitres of blood flowing from the screen (though there are a couple of proper horror scenes: the attack on the petrol station and the underground liar), but you’ll get hectolitres of love for cinema. Unless you need to prove to yourself or someone else that family adventure films are below your “level”, this film can never offend you – so I don’t understand the initial displeasure here in Filmbooster. It’s a very subjective full house (I am aware of several screenwriting crutches in the second half), but also very strong. The most pleasant film of the year.