Necrotongue

I was secretly hoping for someone to finally bring a new angle to the romantic comedy genre, but I was disappointed yet again. The filmmakers slavishly copied the established format. Apart from a decent cast, there was practically nothing to be excited about. Actually, there was something. I was glad that there wasn’t too much pathos to wade through at the end. I was also surprised that there weren’t that many funny moments; I would expect some given that it was a comedy.

I didn’t have high expectations for this film and I enjoyed it all the more. The film was serious throughout, but I still found moments that made me laugh out loud. I'm not a big fan of Woody Harrelson, but I must admit he was an excellent choice for the role of Arthur Poppington. I wasn't bored for a second and would have even added a fifth star if the ending hadn't been drowned in a pool of pathos.

Hmm, what should I say about Biutiful? Probably the most interesting thing for me were the relationships in the main character's weirdly functioning family. The film had a strongly depressing atmosphere, but since I don't have an ounce of sympathy for global migration, some poignant moments left me completely cold. Plus, when I finished watching the film, my skin felt itchy all over, and I had an urge to take a shower as soon as possible and then vacuum the whole apartment.

Only a few scenes in the film made me laugh. What I got instead was a huge pile of various clichés. This romantic comedy was built up in the same predictable way that action movies were made in the early 90s (a good guy with excellent martial arts skills beats almost everyone, only to suffer immensely in the final showdown and win gloriously in the end). It was clear from the start who would end up with whom. Everybody was pretending nothing was going to happen for a while, then it seemed like everything would work out, but then came the unexpected twist to set the stage for a touching ending. The biggest problem for me was that nothing actually interesting happened, so I was pretty bored.

I didn't expect this film to be groundbreaking, and it wasn’t. I got a film with a fairly predictable ending, but luckily it wasn’t drowning in pathos and had a relaxed atmosphere. I even had a few good laughs, so I was satisfied. It wasn’t the usual Simon Pegg goofiness, the film was much calmer, but I still had a good time.

What a weird film. The story is actually told backwards, so I got to know how everything was going to end right in the beginning, and yet I was entertained all along as it was gradually revealed to me why all those things happened. The filmmakers managed to create a somewhat paranoid atmosphere and bring suspense and the effect of deja-vu to an already resolved story. I even had a decent laugh in the moments before the main character realized what was going on.

I never have high expectations of romantic comedies (good thing I don’t), but I was pleasantly surprised this time. Sure, the film did have those sappy moments that I was counting on, but it didn't go overboard with them. It was funny, it had its dramatic line and didn’t pull any punches towards either men or women. A lot of blockbusters don't have such a great cast, although Ben Affleck... The two hours just flew by, and I was decently entertained all along, so there you have it.

The Coen brothers pulled off another great movie. True, I lowered my original rating by one star, but that was mostly because I'm getting spoiled these days and maybe I nitpick too much. Anyway, I did enjoy the film and I rank it among my favorite classics.

I'm giving the second season four stars in the end, even though I had a number of issues concerning each episode. The biggest problem was that the creators forgot about humor at times, and the plot was getting boring in places. I don't know what went wrong. Some episodes were good quality. I even enjoyed moments when humor was downplayed in favor of drama, I only had a problem with the episodes that had nothing to offer.

For the entire double episode, I decided to give four stars because the whole thing didn't bore me and I especially enjoyed the second part, but I was terribly annoyed by the illogical behavior of all the characters throughout the attack or kidnapping, or whatever it was. Only Richard Ayoade is missing and IT Crowd is complete. 4*.