D.Moore

I haven't seen such a horrible musical film in a long time. The individual numbers are connected by the most flimsy material possible - Josef Hlinomaz leads Helena Vondráčková from door to door in the old house, and then she sings in each room. There is supposed to be humor during the singing, but I noticed it only in the "clip" with Pavel Bobek and perhaps in the final Hello Dolly! scene. Otherwise, I was frankly horrified that someone (I guess Jiří Šebánek) managed to invent a clip for the song “Lásko má, já stůňu", where Vondráčková, singing as a dentist, drills the teeth of a struggling patient. As if dentists themselves weren't scary enough. But I was amused by the song “Elixír", in which they sing about the elixir of youth, because the program comes from around the time when Helena Vondráčková stopped aging - at least mentally. I’m giving it a star exclusively for the songs, most of which have perfect lyrics written by Miloň Čepelka. Hearing them alone would make me feel better.

I starred each episode of the series for myself, then averaged the ratings and came up with 3.444 stars, which I think is fair. The series consists of some really good, funny and gently satirical episodes (Střepy pro štěstí, Šampáňo, Vrata), then some rather funny episodes (for example, Fígl could have been even better if Mr. Císler and Mr. Sobota hadn't been thwarted by their incompetent teammates, especially the guy in the leather jacket) and one really stupid one (Smolař). I was intrigued by the cast. The only one who plays the same role and thus somehow connects the series is Miloš Kopecký as the lawyer Kulovaný, but otherwise it seems that Iva Janžurová plays the defendant in one part, the judge in the next, then several mothers and finally the unbearable wife. However, most of these characters are terribly sloppily written. Jiří Císler again enjoys his typical con-man role, only to be given the role of the beleaguered philharmonic in Vrata, which doesn't suit him very well, and Ladislav Křiváček also gets a lot of not-so-different opportunities. If the cast was more diverse, it would have been even better. It wanted more surprises like the great Oldřich Kaiser as Marcello / Dežo.

Probably a better film than three stars, but the poor newbie dubbing completely ruined it for me. I haven't heard anything this appalling in a long time. Hopefully, in time, I'll get the DVD and watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with subtitles, enjoy the acting of Wayne, Stewart and Marvin (who won't have an awkward voice), maybe even hear the music, and perhaps laugh at the jokes that the dubbing turned into an endlessly awkward affair. A television disgrace. Gross.

"Amos, did you operate?" - "No, I just washed the car." - "Thank God." An enjoyable romantic comedy, though more romantic than comedic. The central duo is perfect, the bed scene successfully funny and the scene in which “Something" by the Beatles plays is very beautiful. It's nothing ground-breaking, unlike Cactus Flower I wouldn't put House Calls on again right away, but at the same time it's nothing that would tend to bore or even annoy people.

Bliss, perfection, absolute splendor and a diamond without blemish. Dvořák's music itself is heavenly and breathtaking (many people criticize From the New World simply because it is so popular, but I laugh at such people), but the supremely dignified performance of the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan perhaps elevates it even more. And I am otherwise a supporter of the fact that nobody can play Czech music better than Czechs, who simply have a unique relationship to it. I give it ten stars.

"The sun shines on the earthly paradise, for it is full of beauty..." Childhood love endures, and The Freon Ghost remains a beautifully charming film even after all these years; I’m deliberately not going to write fairy tale or fairy tale comedy. I love without exaggeration the scene in which the song mentioned at the beginning of the commentary plays, and I am very glad that such a film was made. For some people it may be too moralizing and uninteresting, for others it is at least thought-provoking and hopefully also an inspiring work with the great Vlastimil Brodský (who are we kidding - without him it would be meaningless). Svoboda's perfect music. Three and a half stars rounded up.

Seventy years have been enough to turn propaganda, which at the time must have been as encouraging as it should have been, into an almost perfectly chilling and repellent anti-war film. At least that’s the feeling I get from it. Although the authors (with Alexander de Seversky in the lead) were wrong about the year of Japan's defeat (they estimated 1948), the other visions were closer to the truth. Including that, at first sight, perhaps too futuristic earthquake-inducing bomb - the Americans and New Zealanders in 1945 actually tested, for example, tsunami bombs. As far as workmanship goes, Victory Through Air Power is without fault. The playful and cheerful animation showing the development of aviation is perfect, and when it is replaced by a slightly different, darker and more dramatic one with the onset of World War II (the scene with the submarines, oh my!), the aforementioned chills come and it's pretty dense. I know that Hitler's favorite was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but if he had watched this Disney movie, he might have learned a lot. Or he could have shot himself two years earlier.__P.S. Considering the time of the film's creation and the tense situation in general, I don't blame the film for factual errors, but I can't overlook them and I deduct one star for them. Just to be clear.

If someone had told me that The Champ is an upside-down American remake of our two years younger How to Pull Out a Whale's Tooth, I would have immediately believed them and added that it is much better. But that would probably be a big coincidence. This way, I have no choice but to "only" state that The Champ entertained me from beginning to end and continuously touched me from the middle to the end. The biggest contributor to this is the small-big actor Ricky Schroder, who manages not to overshadow the experienced duo of Voight and Dunaway, but rather to be their equal partner. The Champ is a really beautiful film. If I'd seen it in a slightly different mood, I might have written that it was emotionally blackmailing me for at least an hour... But this time it was just right.

An enjoyable film, but for my taste there is very, very little going on. Philippe Noiret and Catherine Deneuve do look good together, and the rewarding African setting is nice to look at thanks to the impressive production design, but otherwise The African didn't show much.

"Who were they?" - "I don't know, but they spoke Danish." Well, Steven Seagal, was it the Danes by any chance? This is what I asked myself at first, but as time went on it became more and more clear to me that it didn't have to be the Danes at all, because apparently anything is possible in this film. And it was. One star is for the obvious (but more or less futile) attempt to make something at least a little bit watchable.