Marigold

It still seemed hasty, balky and empty, until I learned from promo materials that Woo was editing an "action version" for Western audiences. Most of the runtime of the "western cut" consists of all kinds of fierce fights, done with complete perfectionism (what else would one expect from Woo?). When it's not a war, we get tea esotericism, which only feels unique a few times, and it certainly doesn't radiate as much inner strength as Zhang's best moments. In the action version, the natures of the characters have been lost, and the viewer is successful when he or she learns to recognize the individual protagonists in the crazy battles; it is almost impossible to penetrate inside them... only Kaneshiro's Chinese Odysseus completely conquered me. Overall, The Battle of Red Cliff reminds me of The Two Towers without The Fellowship of the Ring preceding it. Good fun, effective directing, but also no soul or a great story. I have no doubt that all this may be included in the uncut version. Unfortunately, the European cut was, more of as battle epic.

A very bad joke. I had hoped that the names Petr Nikolaev and Karel Roden would guarantee a decent level. But what could one expect to film with a screenplay that we are more often used to seeing for humorous castle performances by historical fencing groups? The detective plot explicitly insults the gray brain cells, the dialogues are a pig dog between archaic stylization and the general Czech language, and the acting performances dither between embarrassment and lack of expression. Nikolaev did not save anything. Perhaps it wasn’t even possible. One star for the flawless Markéta Hrubešová, who was the only one who understood the assignment and did not suffer through the film. Her acting skills don't age, just like her lush cleavage... I boldly include the gesture of the ancient heroin at the end in the gallery of the worst shit I've ever seen.

Bergman's cruelly sarcastic farewell, in which his distinctive imagery is only rather remotely reflected. A few of the shots have a breathtaking inner strength, a disturbing composition that brings intense uncertainty on the threshold of reality and dream. As in Scenes from a Marriage, the characters come to the fore here and most of the intensity and experience comes from their sophisticated psychology. With a good dose of sarcasm, Bergman returns to the fate of Marianne and Johan – while she retains her sympathetic fragility and vulnerability, her ability to bind in a motherly way, the painful Johan has definitely turned into a crotchety and internally angry caricature of himself. Saraband dances with the viewer slowly and melancholically, revealing with a certain skeptical jeer the themes of love, understanding, passion and old age. The scene where ex-spouses lie down in the same bed after years best reflects the strange illusory of understanding that is able to dispel terrible mental rages. Bergman left the door open. For the young and the up-and-coming, there is a chance to overcome the mistakes and guilt of the old, but time is, unfortunately, cyclical – and nowhere is it written that Johan's granddaughter Karin will not succumb to the same conditions as her ancestors, to whom she is bound by hurtful love. Saraband is a formally light, an internally but unusually urgent and elaborate farewell to Ingmar Bergman with film and life, i.e., two phenomena that form an integral unity in his work.

McG actually surprised me in a good way. If I set aside the fact that it stylizes a large part of the exteriors as a backdrop for videos by KORN or some other nu-metal band, T4 has a pretty solid atmosphere. The dialogues are not action-packed - the few "philosophical" branches fit into the trailer, which is quite a performance. T4 offers nothing more in terms of lasting pleasures of the spirit. After a year, Sam Worthington again carried out a big movie theft, and once again the victim is... tatadadaa... Christian Bale. But he himself is to blame this time. Someone should really have explained to him that Connor is NOT a Terminator with an implemented depression chip. Unlike the single-shades of his more famous colleague, Worthington is able humanize his character and provide him with something unforgettable... If we disregard the robotic mentality of the plot and the background of thought, there are still a lot of solid action scenes (but not ballbusting scenes), a nice atmosphere and, for notorious nostalgics, also beautiful memories (for me the most are Gáni roaring from a cassette in the apocalyptic wasteland). I'm having second thoughts: On one hand T4 is soullessness, but on the other I had a great time and wondered what it would be like if someone who could do more than just serve fancy pictures got a hold of it... In this way, I have to conclude that, although unreal, the dehumanization and urgency of Cameron's childhood backdrops of the future remain unsurpassed. Indeed, is really the human heart that sets us apart from machines. McG is an overhead terminator. And faulty can screenwriters. Bah!

Big puppy eyes. This film really tries to get emotions out of the viewer like a cute German mutt begging for a piece of ham. Few scenes in it have natural inner strength like Belmond's magical encounter with Max von Sydow. Huster helps himself with (fortunately bearable) exaggeration and big gestures, which are partly at odds with his effort to direct airily, naturally and charmingly. In any case, despite the obvious fatigue and being worn out, Belmondo still manages to attract with a roguish smile and eyes in which life sparkles as happily as in the old days. Rombi's music is also good, which sometimes helps where the impression of a construct and emotional blackmail cannot be overcome. It pleasantly rounds the edges. The story about the bleakness of old age and how important it is to find at least a piece of solid ground in immeasurable despair is captivating as a result, and if we set aside our aversion to the fact that the film plays on our emotions, we can feel the tremors of something deeper. A Man and His Dog is certainly not great filmmaking, but this is nevertheless a pleasant film for fans of Belmond (and Sydow :o)).

Very nice directing and good actors, but the script hardly traverses the three levels of the story: thriller, political-journalistic moralizing and personal drama. The introduction is excellent, full of the unique and very rhythmic direction by Macdonald, but then everything somehow shatters, shreds, evaporates... the legible transnational conspiracy tries to compare with the more serious mental matrix, but it is tedious and quite protracted. The final twists may come as a surprise, but they do not fix the shoddy impression from the previous storytelling. In the end, State of Play is neither an original thriller nor a film that would appeal to us with any message. It has a little bit of both and not enough of either. Nevertheless, mainly thanks to the directing and the actors, it holds up more than honorably. [70%]

Boring, empty, self-serving. The violence is neither shocking, aesthetic or rousing, just emptily exhibiting and annoyingly stupid. The characters have absolutely no freedom of choice, the creators always push them where they want them to go, and brutality is the only way to get out of an emergency. Another confirmation that Hollywood makes rabbit shit out of pearls. There is a hundred times more real violence, real dilemmas and real suffering in "non-horror" Bergman. This crap belongs in the center of the peloton of mainstream attempts to shock. Who? Maybe only children.

A successful film which, in addition to a rather stifling atmosphere, also offers a very careful ethical question... Aware of its options, however, the film remains somewhere halfway between documentary and stylization. I liked the natural dialogues, the actors and the simple but functional contrast of age versus youth. And also the fact that Bába does not side with either end of the spectrum. The topic of unsentimental dying is also quite unseen in the Czech Republic... Overall a promise.

That was a mistake, Shatner! Paramount apparently considered it a small bribe to a revolting star, but amateur directing and a rough and patchy script sent Star Trek 5 into the category of failures. For the first time since 1979, the terrible spiels about God, very contrived humor and unnatural relationships between the characters have become complicated for the creators. Whilst Wise's first film somehow balanced high ambitions, Shatner's fifth instalment deserves... enough. Mr. Spock barely made it.

An inhuman blast that gains momentum as the creators realize what themes/plots can be pulled into such a conceived world. Unlike the slightly stuffy Simpsons, Futurama is a naughty space trek for (non)adults.