DaViD´82

I don't know what's sadder: the fact that this is the weakest (but not weak) Christmas special in many years, or the fact that it's still almost enough to be the comic-book film of the year. By far the best part is the prologue, it's the pure essence of the Doctor.

I have a somewhat ambivalent feeling about it. On the one hand, it's admirably slow, when you really feel all those past years (it definitely looks much longer than it really is, but in a good way), on the other hand, it only takes those key moments from the original without the padding around that it acts as an outline of melodramatic bitter clichés full of Sophia's choices to be used in a Mexican soap opera, so you simply won´t stop laughing. Not to mention the ending that looks like from another movie/genre. Why it works so well in the end is how it´s directed, the genius loci of the dreary locations (who else than their master Arkapaw) and, above all, emotionally tense melodrama subdued by performances.

Strangely built. In the first half, nothing at all happens. There are too many songs in every other scene and they seem unnatural and forced (just a regular musical with questionable quality of production) to finally start something in the second half (such as Hans Christian Andersen à la Disney) and suddenly the songs start disappearing until they disappear completely (final half an hour). Beautifully styled and thanks to the second half even more for boys than one would expect from a "princess fairy tale with way to many songs". Which, in any case, does not change the fact that it is undoubtedly more for the girls, and the role of the male characters, which are clearly in numbers here (perhaps except for Olaf and the reindeer), corresponds to this.

Better and much less useless than what I feared, but at the same time worse and more useless than what I hoped for.

Chris Kelly trying to be Alan Ball during the Six Feet Under. And he fails miserably. At the same time, it tries to fill all the Sundance boxes and something like "the ultimate Sundance indie festival with characters who have no traits but are only a bunch of eccentricities." And it's so terribly obvious and not at all honest. In fact, it is sometimes annoying in that calculation and at the same time incomplete in terms of the concept. So Kelly should kiss the feet of the duo Plemons/Shannon, who find in those characters even what they don't even have. Only thanks to them does it work at least to some extent.

More mature? Don't let it mess with you, it´s only dirtier and free of childish staff. It is true that the first hour is largely redundant and the movie would probably do without it. There is also no denying that describing characters as one-dimensional means adding one dimension to them. On the other hand, this has always been the case with Star Wars. You can recognize scenes that were shot several times and that's not good. And what they did to poor Cushing will make you turn in the grave for more than a decade. At the same time, however, the final half hour has unprecedented zest for this series, that it goes its own way and that Edwards works impressively with space and scale (at least in Imax, it works great in this respect). Yes, it's nothing more than intense disposable blockbuster. However, it is a pretty successful disposable blockbuster that does not try to be anything else which is nice, not in terms of events let alone in terms of not pop culture idol like other self-centered movies of this universe. PS: Although Giacchin's accompaniment is not as good quality or grateful/suitable for independent listening as Williams's, it is surprisingly better, as it does not draw attention to itself and, in fact, only serves the film.

We have to help each other in a Czechoslovakian way. Although I can't shake the feeling that it would work better on the stage, I don't regret the time invested. And I wouldn't regret even more if the Jarchovský/Hřebejk duo once had been backed by a clear storyline. It is not directed as a story from beginning to end, but there are rather individual separate "bachelor's" segments, where every twenty minutes are devoted to one family and then the focus is on another one, without ever returning to the previous ones. It is also a pity that the children are sidelined after a while. The reason why it works so well in spite of the above is that the situation and its solution from the point of view of individual families is played out interestingly, that what Jarchovský spoils in terms of plot, is made up with dialogs and the fact that the performances of unknown cast is amazing. In other words, that is the most sad is the opportunity of the final part was completely wasted.

The spiritual successor to the original MythBusters. The same narrators, the same production team, the same focus on popular science, the same cast, the same scheme and style... Well, just the same thing, but with a different name and under the auspices of Netflix.

Everything that is wrong about it is best proved by a long part in the middle of the performance (before the break), when during the sounds of Ryba music more than a dozen characters slowly roam the stage with candles in their hands, where they pretend to have a non-existent activity, and gradually step up to the apron to recite some completely empty phrases "like a Christmas touching memory of childhood" from the department "childhood and Christmas". Which is supposed to symbolize how Ryba´s work affects them. The teacher Ryba, performed by Lněnička, walks around them in a "serious manner" and he has nothing to do all the time, so he casts overwhelmingly understanding glances. All of this is topped by the character of Ryba´s father who briefly summarizes this torture (for sure the worst ever staging of theaters in Pardubice, complete waste of time) to the already mostly asleep audience. We must admit that the whole performance is not like that. But there are more such stating "great wisdom" scenes, or that mosaic of scenes from the undeniably interesting and contradictory life of Ryba built around them does not balance them. It is even more obvious when even these scenes are too (and unnecessarily) literal. What is over the edge is when the recording of the performance directed in a way that completely ignores the good old rule "if you direct the broadcast of the performance on a large stage, then, unlike a small stage, do not take focus on the details of actors", because it requires a different kind of acting and it looks amateur.

Facing the captivating depths of madness through the thunder in Ohio… Hard to say what to praise more. Whether an unprecedentedly magnificent tangible subliminal tension, Shannon's performance as a true family-based hard worker who realizes that he's almost certainly succumbing to schizophrenia, but "what if he doesn't". The result is the most disturbing, most realistic and, last but not least, by far the best film version of the biblical story of Noah. I have perhaps the only minor complaint related to the conclusion. This is a type of movie that can only end in two ways. And Nichols went the way of being more cinematic and stylish. However, I cannot shake the feeling that the latter would get even more under the skin and would be richer in terms of interpretation.