D.Moore

I felt like I was watching an "old" Japanese Godzilla movie made with new technology, so I think the purpose was served. A serious-minded story with interesting characters (which is probably the biggest difference from the current American MonsterVerse) that, like all of Japan, went from pre-war crisis to post-war crisis. All of that is naturally blended with wonderfully and deliberately dumbed-down ideas, such as the plan to destroy Godzilla, that I couldn't help but be excited. The digital Godzilla looks like a man in a rubber suit, and when he starts the demolition work and the Ifukube's theme music plays, it's really something. If I were 100% objective, I might give it one less star. But I don't want to.

For how short it is and how relatively little they talk in it, Ghost in the Shell has a surprising amount to say. A good idea in a good presentation is something always welcome, and this is one of those few select sci-fi films that have somehow managed not to get old (like Blade Runner, Alien, Akira, The Matrix, Back to the Future II...), even though reality has overtaken or almost caught up with them in terms of years. If I had to single out one thing, it would be a completely amazing five-minute long scene in the middle, in which nothing substantial happens at all, it’s "just" the haunting atmospheric music and alternating shots of a neon futuristic city. It draws you in perfectly.

Wonderful! Miyazaki's graciously poetic mind has conjured up a fantasy fairytale fable from post-war Japan, a bit in the style of Pan's Labyrinth. It is perhaps impossible to watch except with a permanent smile and the occasional tear in the eye. The animation is breathtaking and, in comparison, the Pixar, Disney and Sony trailers that preceded it are truly pathetic. It's not that I don't like CGI animation, but The Boy and the Heron simply took my breath away, something that didn’t happen (yet) when watching those other films.

I don't really fault the makers of 65 for wanting to make anything other than a fun flick that isn't completely stupid. And they succeeded. The problem is that Adam Driver is a bit wasted in films like this. But he did go for it and it's a good thing it didn't end up being a disaster despite all the problems. And Ariana Greenblatt is a sweetheart!

Basically, Napoleon has everything I was looking forward to, but it's always too short. The film jumps from scene to scene for two and a half hours, but gives little space to make an impact. Phoenix's Napoleon is the same (or rather, just as unpleasant) from beginning to end and doesn't surprise in like Vanessa Kirby's Josephine. The other characters are unfortunately stale, however interesting they could have been – Napoleon's brother and their mother, Josephine's lover, Wellington... I believe that in the long version they will be given their due space, but I would also like to see those promised spectacular battles get their due space, because we didn't get much of those either. What I wouldn't give for the whole film to take place during the Egyptian campaign, for example! But no, we're here for a while, there's no time for a tactical demonstration, the scenes need subtitles with years so they don't blend in. Ridley Scott doesn't really show his hand until the end, at Waterloo, where I got everything I wanted, but I'm not going to lie when I say I was already wishing for the film to end about half an hour before that. I'm sorry, but I rate it as I rate it. If you want to see a really good cinematic Napoleon, check out Bondarchuk's masterpiece, the Czech Waterloo with Rudolf Hrušínský if you're in the mood for a TV psychological treat. And if you want to see a long film about a controversial warlord who deserves every minute of its runtime, Patton is for you.

Miyazaki's dreamy poem, really wonderfully animated and with reliably beautiful music by Hisashi. I would say that as much as - or more than - about Horikoshi, The Wind Rises is a trip into the soul of Miyazaki himself, and an account of the uneasy life in Japan at the time. Such a biography, idealized as it is, may be the envy of many other Horikoshi figures who have seen only ordinary feature films without a shred of imagination and following a tired template.

The attempt at a slightly smarter blockbuster actually worked. If it wasn't for the unnecessarily drawn out finale and the overly long introduction, the film could have been about half an hour shorter, which would have been to its benefit.

A film that explains almost nothing, just starts happening and leaves it up to you to figure out how quickly you can navigate its world, when you will realize what actually happened then and what is going on now. Somewhere in the middle I knew I'd have to see Akira again to understand all the connections right from the start, but it certainly didn't spoil the experience of what was literally a beautiful spectacle (this really is a movie for the cinema - and the music!) and it didn't rob the film of its point.

After In Cold Blood, I was definitely not in a good mood or I with peace in my soul. Capote added another dimension to the story, and it made those feelings even stronger. It's ugly, but that ugliness actually makes it an extremely interesting film that might not have been as good without Philip Seymour Hoffman, but that's a pointless musing. I would, however, also single out Catherine Keener, whose Harper Lee was the perfect human counterbalance to Truman Capote.

From the first trailer, this light-hearted-looking film with three heroines is very much about the heroines, and it's light-hearted to boot. Oh, yeah. I really liked The Marvels, perhaps because I wasn't expecting a second Civil War, perhaps because I don't mind switching and looking at different movies through different eyes. So I enjoyed not only the interplay of the central trio, but also looking for that interplay, with the most important role played by the perfect Iman Vellani as Kamala. It's hard to imagine a better guide through the Marvels story than an enthusiastic teenage girl who finally made it from a show to a movie and from dreams to their realization. The film is light, fun, colorful, has an understandably driven female villain, an absolutely great score (Laura Karpman, do some Star Wars, please), including a musical passage where Disney kind of pokes fun at itself, imaginative action passages with character flipping, effective humor in scenes like "Nick Fury and Kamala's family", as if cut from an Emmerich flick,... And there are cats and Cats! The most likeable Marvel movie in a long time.