Lima

Director and screenwriter Meir Zarchi deserves a thorough examination in a psychiatric clinic, I think his psychological profile would be really worth seeing. I see it like this: Zarchi and his mates got together and said "Guys, let's rent a camera, go to Gunther's cabin and shoot some brutal stuff there over the weekend. We'll take Camille, she's up for any mischief and it won't cost us anything, just the petrol and the paint. It doesn't matter that we don't know shit about filmmaking and that there are unbelievable logical flaws in the script, which I fucked up in twenty minutes, everyone will watch it anyway just out of curiosity."… I have to agree with those who summed up the qualities of this film on imdb by slightly changing its title "I Spit on this Crap!". And on top of that, it’s terribly boring.

It was my first encounter with Lucio Fulci and I can't say I was disappointed. Although he doesn't live up to his nickname 'king of death' until the last half hour, even until then it's still worth a watch. About halfway through there is an extremely charming, and for me personally unintentionally comical, fight scene between a zombie and a two metre shark. Although it’s quite short, it's definitely worth checking out, you won't see anything like it in another film. There are also small hints of morbid "appetizers", but the real carnage starts about 20 minutes before the end. A zombie picnic over a fresh corpse, desserts for zombies in the form of Molotov cocktails, blood spurting merrily in all directions, the zombies are cheerful, playful and want to cuddle, lol. The final shot of the zombies marching towards Manhattan and the absence of the classic happy ending is very satisfying.

Nothing happens for a long, long time in the beginning, and even after the cannibal first appears, it's hard to talk about anything shocking, or at least suspenseful. It’s just a borefest, and the awful keyboard claps do get on your nerves. In the last twenty minutes D’Amato kicks things up a bit, there are two "appetizing" scenes, and the "dessert" with a human fetus is really very creepy. Oh, by the way, George Eastman, the cannibal is really handsome. I'm surprised I've never seen him on a teen-mag poster, I'm sure there would be a spot on the wall of a lovelorn fifteen year old's room :)

Right at the beginning of the film, the detailed scene of the cutting of skin and eye, accompanied by the leaking of the eye filler, suggests that this film will be no pushover. And indeed, what follows is a quality, suspenseful thriller, spiced with four brutal murders, two of which are very cleverly executed. One of the murders is accompanied by a long rape scene in a car, the director is a psychopath. The ending with the surprise moment didn't scare me, it made me laugh. The overall impression is a bit awkward, but for the few macabre moments and the clever photo-flash scene I won't go below 3*.

This film is absolutely disgusting, stupid, idiotic, I didn't like it at all!... No, no, no, no, this film is absolutely brilliant and riveting!… What's truth and what's fabrication? That must have been the feelings of the audiences of Andy Kaufman, a master of misdirection, a man who lived an exciting, crazy, funny and sad life at the same time. And that is what this film is like, and I mean it. Forman knew that a life story like this was worth filming. His direction is downright brilliant, fresh, as if by a young filmmaker at the peak of their powers. Jim Carrey certainly doesn't ruin it, he's wonderful, but I liked him even more as Kaufman's alter-ego Tony Clifton, I cracked up laughing. Those two hours are watchable in one breath. Bravo!

An incredibly depressing film that captures the spirit of the book. Ubiquitous poverty and squalor uniformity in thought and dress, a grim environment, scratched walls and a screen in every room with Big Brother watching everything. A suffocating totalitarian atmosphere, full of fear and surveillance, and in it a man, brilliantly played by John Hurt, yearning for love, purity, and freedom. His equal partner is Richard Burton in the role of the High Partisan, although he doesn't have much space. Suzanne Hamilton just nods along, but she brings an element of feminine beauty that at least somewhat offsets a lot of the bleakness. What surprised me is that the music is by Eurythmics. The final scene with the electroshock and the starving rats is not easy to get out of your head. If you're not in the right mood, by all means don't watch this, put it off for another day.

I really cried at the end, this is something that will get everyone. A beautiful, moving story, sensitively filmed. How on earth does Lasse Hallstrom manage to make every one of his films a true cinematic event? And the actors? I really like Tobey Maguire's austere style, Michael Caine was excellent (but I can't help it, it wasn't Oscar-worthy), and Charlize Theron has long since ceased to be just a model, she’s a really good actress and an extremely glamorous one at that. And so, in conclusion, my friends, let's thank fate that this didn't get into the claws of Jan Svěrák. He would have thrown in some sad eyes or something similar and viewers would have missed out a profound experience.

A slightly schizophrenic mix of 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Minority Report and The Matrix. Some may like it, but it doesn't work together for my taste. The beginning was promising, though, an oppressive vision of an Orwellian society, with the excellent Bale as a cleric discovering his feelings. It had atmosphere, it had depth, but as time went on it became more and more of a mess, kept afloat by the few scenes of Bale and Emily Watson together. I wish Wimmer would make a proper action flick next time, because the final action sequence was excellent. PS: My wish was granted 4 years later, unfortunately.

I don't really like crazy comedies and I don't really like Jackie Chan either, but this is an exception. A light-hearted, funny and – world wonder – clever comedy set in late 19th century Victorian England. There are charming references to famous people of the time: Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack the Ripper, famous works of world cinema, even a young Charles Chaplin has a role. It works well together, and it’s funny. The Chan-Wilson duo is wonderful and especially Owen Wilson shows that he had a lot of fun during production, and he proves his comedic talent. The fight scenes are without fault, the choreography is imaginative, often funny (there's that word again) and yet executed at great speed; Chan can do this better than acting. All in all, two hours of proper, easygoing fun.

Fugua can deliver, but here he struggles with a lousy script and half-baked dialogue. Really, the only worthwhile thing in this film is the scene of the ethnic cleansing in a Nigerian village, which is both excellently shot and makes the ignorant realise that Africa is a world where human life has no value. If the rest had been in a similar vein, this would have been a great anti-war film. As it is, it's just another useless Hollywood crap that's dull in thought, with not much action either, and a typically Hollywood clichéd ending. So, sorry, this didn’t work out.