Malarkey

The fact that Tom Tykwer is one of the most interesting (not only German) directors of this era is proven over and over in every scene of this movie. The long shots look better the higher they’ve been filmed from. The issue is that though Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi have good roles, it won’t save a movie that’s boring apart from the visuals and that drags on forever. And don’t even get me started on the ending. It complements the entire movie – in that it is empty and falls completely flat.

Interesting in its premise, bashful in conveying it. A thriller about the handicapped Gina who is blind but an operation keeps her hopeful, at least as one eye goes. I personally admire every movie with a handicapped lead. It’s just a shame that the rest looks like it’s patched up from romance novels and Fifty Shades of Grey. Unnecessary amount of sex scenes, not enough suspension, far too many relationship twists and turns and a claustrophobic feeling attempting to completely ruin the movie for you. A shame, because visually, it had some nice moments.

After a long time, they made a bad, even substandard episode. The production was completely amateur. At first, the title enticed me. I had hoped that the episode could be fun since it’s about a professional critic, who are rarely any decent, but the murder was inferior. It seems like everybody wanted the critic dead and that everybody had something to do with. The plotline was far too Agatha Christie. Then when you come to the unravelling, you realize it’s exactly like Agatha Christie’s. It’s a shame that the only fun thing about it comes with a side character connected to the murder. She’s a cook (and a porn star, too) and Ben eats absolutely everything she cooks. His appetite is probably the only funny thing. This is the last episode with Sabrina before she got replaced with a different investigator by the ORF TV station. She wanted fame equal to Benno and his character’s mom and so she was removed.

After watching this Mission: Impossible movie, I had to go back and read my reviews of the previous instalments. I found out that it basically was what it always has been; an incredibly high-quality action thrill ride with Tom Cruise. I think he’s currently the only actor who works this hard for action movies. There’s barely any CGI in the movie. Not only do most of the scenes feel real, they also are. It’s apparent that Tom gave it all he’s got and when you watch him jump off a plane nearly 4 miles above the ground, you can see all of the hundred plus jumps he had to do for this scene to work. He’s a champ. Nobody in Hollywood even compares to him nowadays. Everybody’s hiding behind a green screen and the only extra thing they might do is go to a gym after shooting so that they can show off their muscles. As far as the actual movie goes, I got what I wanted – the best action scenes of this year, Tom in a million different ways and his gang that radiates charisma. And unfortunately maybe a little bit of confusion because of the script, but that’s always the case with Mission Impossible movies. Anyhow, it gets very decent four stars from me and I’m convinced that the name Mission Impossible means more in 2018 than people could have hoped for some 20 years ago.

I have to give it to Guy Ritchie – his movies have style. Whatever he films ends up fantastic. But I can’t shake the feeling that some of the scenes tend to go over the top. The beginning was amazing. The very first scene was gripping, it tells Arthur’s story since early childhood until the age where the rest of the story begins. It’s original, quick, entertaining… for about an hour. Then the ideas thin out and the whole thing gets repetitive. That’s when it loses its magic and becomes a classic Guy Ritchie movie. I can’t say he’s not being inventive, but my initial excitement has quickly grown cold. And even though I admire the effort to shoot a King Arthur fantasy from a different angle, I still couldn’t piece the story together and all I could do was to watch some CGI hocus pocus.

The Canadians have never been too good with art. The music isn’t any good, except for a few exceptions. The movies aren’t any good, except for a few exceptions. And this movie certainly isn’t that exception. It was a drama that copied whatever it could and did it poorly.

It’s about the premise, the filmmaking craft, the absolutely claustrophobic atmosphere of a call center. Sure, there’s a whole lot of illogical situations, but I don’t really care. I sat there at the edge of my seat for 85 minutes, completely glued to the screen with suspense. The Guilty has amazed me with great dialogues, a flawed main character and moments that really made me feel something. Another minimalistic but memorable, high-quality piece.

If the ending wasn’t so badly made, I could brag here that I’ve recently seen two movies from Singapore and both were of a very high quality. The Apprentice has a great premise, builds up high expectations towards the ending and then just fades away. What a pity.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Every time I recommend a film to Enšpígl for a nicely spent evening, it turns out to be a disaster. And with this one, even the cast played into my cards. Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu side by side in a movie, that is quite cool, isn’t it? Especially since I haven’t seen Gérard in a while. In the end I have to say it would have been better if I didn’t watch it. Throughout most of the film I kept thinking that the only thing that is okay-ish about it is the fact that I finally get to see Gérard. But for an actor of his stature, that’s not much.

Even though each character is driven to the absurd in this film, it is still a decent comedy based on a simple premise, which was really widespread a few decades ago. Tomáš Pavlíček used the absurdity of the characters to the limit, so aside from the actors and especially actresses being nice to look at, even the setting of the cabin was really good and on the screen it looked like a fairytale forest. When it comes to acting, the whole family entertained me, including Václav Kopta, but the most interesting for me was David Vávra, whom I was really happy to see in a film after such a long time. His acting based on intonation of his voice was a pleasure to watch… and listen to. If only we had more actors like him. Thank you for a great movie.