Lima

The more you know about the subject Clooney is talking about, the more the film will appeal to you. Whether it’s the role of an unassuming, conscientious woman of the people named Claire Simone, thanks to whom a large part of the looted artworks was saved (see for instance the documentary Hitler Museum from 2006), or the real characters of the Monument Men, whose fates have been the subject of several books, but it is thanks to Clooney that they appear for the first time in a feature film, and George has thus paid one big debt to these guys thanks to whom we can enjoy this beautiful art in galleries today. And there’s eye candy here, too. The film has a high visual value thanks to the great cinematography, a high informational value thanks to the interesting chosen theme (so I laugh at some of the silly criticisms here about the "no-agency") and the only thing I would criticize is how the forcefully added pathos in some scenes, or, on the contrary, inappropriately incorporated humour, clashes with the serious tone of the film as a whole. This, unfortunately, is something Clooney didn’t keep an eye on. But other than that, I'm really, really glad I saw it and I'm eager to read more about this interesting aspect of World War II.

One day, Paul Anderson and Milla Jovovich were bored, lounging by the big swimming pool of their Florida beach house, on the table they had grapes, a bottle of Richeourg 1961 and a plate packed with truffles and crab claws. “Hey, Milla,” says Paul suddenly, “I think we need to enliven our marriage somehow, give it a new drive.” “Yeah, you’re right” replies Milla, “the only thing I can think of is a new, beautiful luxury yacht. We still don’t have one. It’d be the spark we need in our lives!” “You’re right,” said Paul, “a yacht would be fine. Abramovich has one, you know, the owner of Chelsea, or whatever the name of that soccer club is, and he’s really happy with it. But where can we get money for it? Resident Evil won’t cut it anymore. I’ve got an idea! We can make...” And Milla interrupts enthusiastically “Resident Evil 6 and Three Musketeers: Revenge From the Past! A crossover that will blow audiences’ minds!“ “Nah,” replies Paul waving his hand, “we need to be smarter. Think about this, what have been the most successful movies of the last few years? But REALLY successful. Titanic and Gladiator!!“ Milla looks at Paul flabbergasted, almost choking with a truffle. Paul gets up from his chair, clearly in his element, and speaks so passionately that he's waving his hands: “We’ll blend these two hits, it’ll be awesome! Pompeii I’ll call it! We rip-off the fights, the concept, the course and the twist from Gladiator, and from Titanic we cram in the fateful love, so that teenage girls will like it. The hero will be played by some beefcake or another, it doesn’t matter if he can’t act, the girls won’t mind. And we’ll save on the script, it’s not important. The main thing is to pack it with as much CGI as possible. It’ll be MASSIVE!!” Screams Paul until he’s almost popping a vein. “Milla, it’ll be a motherfucking hit!!!” Milla thinks for a moment, swallows a grape, cracks her knuckles and then asks, frostily, expecting an affirmative answer: “And darling, will there be a part for me?”

A now almost forgotten but really excellent old school police thriller. Roy Scheider was still going from film to film as a a-list star, with a face not yet disfigured by plastic surgery. The story is straightforward and dark, in the tradition of the best parts of Dirty Harry, and there’s also a car chase that equals or even surpasses in intensity the legendary ones in Bullitt or The French Connection. Some scenes are staged so originally (the car wash robbery, the interrogation in the hospital) that I have never seen anything like it in any other film. And that is appreciated.

Hmm, it seems that someone here really, really wanted to be the new Eddie Murphy. Unfortunately (or fortunately), he has neither the charisma nor, and more importantly, the talent. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Kevin Hart. There’s no one as annoying and embarrassing in contemporary Hollywood as Hart, who surpasses even Chris Tucker, the king of awkwardness of his time, in terms of his relentless overacting and attempt to be "funny" at all costs. The only bright spot is Ice Cube, who may be tough as nails, but I like him since Three Kings, he’s fun. Which can’t be said for this awfully unfunny “comedy” that makes you think that any douchebag can be a screenwriter in Hollywood. I can understand the massive success overseas because the large black audience loves this whiny shit.

It doesn’t matter that he didn’t make many films and that his later works showed some stagnation, it only took three films, The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate and The Year of the Dragon to make Michael Cimino one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century in my eyes. It's a great shame that he was later so disheartened by audience misunderstanding and financial difficulties that he lost his creative spark and withdrew into himself. Paraphrasing film critic Jaroslav Bocek in his review of Marketa Lazarová, The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate are revelations, huge boulders that have grown up and suddenly moved our cinematic and aesthetic standards. Cimino's film is told slowly, in all its epic breadth, as seen, for example, in the seminal works of David Lean. The Russian roulette, which puts the lives of the main characters at stake, is a kind of metaphor for war, and one can laugh smile at Jane Fonda's misunderstanding, who accused Cimino (wrongly, of course) of racism and sucking up the system. PS: Thanks God for Blu-ray! Compared to the lame DVD edition, The Deer Hunter looks amazing in it!

“Drop that zero and get with the hero!” A great hit at the Shockproof Film Festival. With the wannabe rap screeching, the perpetually poofy hairstyle, the colourful outfit and the baggy trousers, Vannila Ice represents everything I dislike so much about the music scene. But all this, plus the crappy plot and the terrible overacting (some the better known actors seem to be saying to themselves all "God, what kind of crap did I signed up for?"), makes for a compilation of something to be applauded every other minute, and preferably in the company of like-minded viewers. In addition, this film is a beautiful picture of the fashion of the rad late 80s and early 90s, until Nirvana came along and "kicked in the doors of perception," as one renowned music critic aptly noted. A portrait of a period and at the same time an outrageous unintentional comedy? Bring it on! I'm gonna go across the street and, uh, schling a schlong.

That's right, when you don't remember anything and you're addicted to the digital atrocities of contemporary cinema (most of the FilmBooster users), you can't relate to a film like this. Taking inflation into account, it's the 4th highest grossing film of all time, but what makes E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial the most important film of the 80s is the response it got. A fairytale that brought everyone to tears in the cinemas, regardless of age (I witnessed it myself, even my tough father cried :o), at one time there was almost nothing else to talk about among people (only Sandokan and the series I, Claudius had a similar response in our country during the Bolshevik era), and a doll of E.T. was a must-have for every Czech family, and not only Czech – and I’m not even counting the failed movie clones that followed it. Simply, this film is a big phenomenon and anyone who says otherwise is lying. What’s most remarkable, though, is that it still works today (I have confirmation after today's Blu-ray screening). The way the whole film is essentially conceived from a child's point of view by the eternal child Spielberg, where we don't see the faces of the adults for the first two-thirds of the runtime (except for Elliot's mom, of course), the timing of each scene, and the gorgeous music by John Williams all make this film a unique affair that – unless you're a cynic, a jerk, or both combined – will bring you to tears at the end, too.

I could write almost the same thing for this film as I did for Pulp Fiction. When it premiered, I was studying in České Budějovice and I couldn't miss the screening in the local cinema, especially after reading the enthusiastic review in Cinema (at that time, under the guidance of Iva Hejlíčková, it was still worth something). There were about twenty of us in the cinema, and at the end there was a chorus of sniffling, accompanied by wiping tears on handkerchiefs. And what happened next? Then, full of enthusiasm, I recommended Forrest Gump to all my friends and acquaintances at the uni, and it’s admirable how word of mouth worked at a time when there was no internet (and mobile phones were the size of a small suitcase and owned only by a select few). Five days later, on the day before the last screening, I wanted to repeat the experience and I was unlucky – it was sold out! Back then, premieres and films in general were screened only for a week, unlike today's multiplexes, but with Forrest Gump they made an exception and extended the screenings for another week and almost all the screenings were full. As far as I know, Forrest continued to fill cinemas across the country for at least another year and a half after its premiere. You know, back then it you couldn't download a hideous screen-rip from the internet, you had go to the cinema for the experience.

An archetypically stupid script can only make a stupid film. I don't buy the Stallone cliché, but in Statham’s films, which are all the same, there is nothing new under the sun, so there can be no question of disappointment. And James Franco is a casting blunder, he can't play the bad guy with that smarmy, good-guy face.

Yes, this flick has almost every filmmaking malady one can think of. Often narratively ham-fisted, as if it were an eager attempt by an inattentive film student, the timing of scenes with some comic potential is botched and even the intended humour is often lost in them. But what Randall Miller lacks in talent, he replaces with passion for the cause. You can clearly feel the genuine love for rock music, the undisguised admiration for the classic musicians who appear here (Ramones, Talking Heads, The Police, Patti Smith, Blondie, Iggy Pop, etc.) and the respect for the "godfather of punk" Hilly Kristal, played with likeable casualness by Alan Rickman. Sometimes that alone is enough to make me like a film, despite all its creative flaws. 3 or 4 stars? In this case, it’s irrelevant.