DaViD´82

Season one 5/5: In spite of the “rather weak" first two episodes, this is the best Britcom of the nineties. Where else can you see nods to The Evil Dead, closely followed by Coppola’s Interview or a paraphrase of Beethoven the St. Bernard crossed with Don’t Look Now, all coming at you as quickly as a burst of automatic fire from a Kalashnikov? But the references aren’t at all important. They are just a sort of icing on the cake, nothing more. The Pegg and Wright gang have created their own type of humor peculiar just to them. Funny humor. Darn funny. Season two 3/5: But all this applies just to the “spontaneously playful" first season. The second season seems too calculated and fragmented. Even the references are suddenly rather superficial. There isn’t one storyline here, but each character has their own, quite independent from the others. It doesn’t start working until the very last episode. And that’s too late.

Three times excellent, three times good, three times barely average and twice unbearable. A disappointing record for a filmmaker of Jarmusch's stature. Unfortunately.

After this movie ended I felt like asking the projectionist if he could rewind it and play it again, but even without that I was basically pleased with the most normal Gondry yet. Maybe it isn’t perfect and flawless, but what really original picture ever is? I don’t pretend that I haven’t had an almost uncritical soft spot for this visionary since his beginnings with video clips. For one thing, you won’t find such a fount of ideas, originality and idiosyncrasy in any other filmmaker. But primarily I rate him for his talent at creating believable dream-reality. In my eyes this is the hardest discipline of all. And while a couple of writers are talented at this, apart from Michel Gondry himself, I think the only filmmaker with the same talent that occurs to me is Tsukamoto. But ouch, no such dream sequences come into this movie. That said, we find heaps of originality here. But in spite of that, after the magnificent intro, the greatest “attraction", i.e. the Sweded movies themselves, are a little creaky. This is the worst part of the movie. It doesn’t hold together, although some wonderful moments are to be found (mainly the short ones like The Lion King and Carrie). Paradoxically it starts working when they stop filming the “remakes" and their own creations start to come out on top. But I’m certainly not disappointed. Maybe also because, unlike many others, I didn’t expect a comedy in the true sense of the word. Not because Gondry couldn’t manage to pull something like that off, but for the simple reason that he didn’t promise anything of the sort. Not even the trailers contained any promise of a bundle of fun (btw, the Sweded trailer with Gondry himself is pure genius and is the most original trailer I have ever seen). And casting Jack Black doesn’t necessarily mean a comedy to make your sides split. So, to sum up: Please Gondry, keep being yourself, whatever the cost.

If the ratio of very funny moments (Ode to Joy!) to the downright embarrassing ones wasn't so balanced, I wouldn't hesitate with a higher rating.

If it weren’t for the ending in the secret room, my satisfaction would be almost boundless. Not because the finale in the attic is bad, but I didn’t think it fitted with what came before it at all. Simply the first hour seems out of place with the final fifteen minutes, and vice versa. But otherwise, everything is as it should be. Atmosphere cuttable by knife, ideas and ideal pace and it’s punchy and effective like an attack by Barça FC. I will definitely have to think hard about where to stay in Barcelona this time round. One thing I know for sure, I won’t stay in an old tenement block under any circumstances.

If the ratio of very funny moments (Ode to Joy!) to the downright embarrassing ones wasn't so balanced, I wouldn't hesitate with a higher rating.

A very good idea that got only half way to outstanding implementation. While the opening melancholic story is certainly well above mediocre, and the second one with the black humor was fantastic, the ending part is just flogging a dead horse... needlessly erasing all and any good impressions. A great shame, doubly so if you bear in mind the first two stories.

If it weren’t for the evidently tripping Zohra Lambert and her, probably intentionally, spaced out performance, there wouldn’t be much to criticize here. You can even get used to the bizarre music that actually suits this movie almost unexpectedly well. Although Jessica’s rather unfortunate summer seems to have a sensible running time, thanks to its sluggishness you get the feeling that it was in fact a good three hours long. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s definitely worth seeing, because it’s pretty rare you get the chance to experience such an excellently created atmosphere of uncertainty about whether the reality is “like this or like that" (I’m trying not to give anything away). In fact, it’s almost never.

You might think that any potential this has is wasted in the title, but strangely this isn’t true here. Because the enthusiastic zombie Nietzsche readers are excellent and intentionally funny throughout the movie. That is if you are in the right mood. Although it’s evident that the entire budget fell on the opening and closing scenes alone, but in fact due to the unashamed cheapness this works really well. Which, in view of the “subject matter", is a pleasant surprise. I hope they make a sequel. I’m very intrigued to know what bitten fate awaits Pepe the faithful mule.

Did Ruins really have to be blessed with such an incredibly uninteresting opening hour? That it could have been significantly better is proven, among other things, by the excellent final thirty minutes.