Filmmaniak

I watched the uncensored version, which was 146 minutes long. An enjoyable and surprisingly quite funny film (for a hardened and very specific audience) with lots of scantily clad girls and demons with tentacles. Overall, the film comes off as an off-the-wall porn version of Akira enriched with romance, set against the backdrop of tidings of the uncompromising end of the world, including an apocalyptic depressive finale. In any case, the film’s basis is a dark urban fantasy with an epic story about the unification of three worlds and the search for the Chosen One, but the bloody battles and explicit erotica are an unprecedented added bonus.

A remarkable and somewhat fascinating mixture of realistic social drama and multilevel parable with elements of magical realism, clearly divided into two parts in the middle. Both parts tell one story and feature the same characters, but otherwise they vary significantly in many aspects. In its first half, the film focuses on the social aspects of the lives of peasants working on tobacco plantations in an isolated feudal community (in sunny and seemingly pleasing shots of the summer harvest), but in the second half it turns into a more naturalistic and dirty social criticism (shot in greyer and more depressing shades of a gloomy winter), which suddenly portrays the same characters in different contexts and under different conditions and encourages reflection on numerous layered messages and a large number of social, religious and environmental interpretations. An intelligible plot, coherent storytelling and consistently mature directing guarantee that this is a film that audiences will like, and one that is emotionally strong, pleasant to watch, unpredictable and entertaining. Also worth appreciating is the film’s courage not to hesitate in the middle and bury all of the previous events and build on their foundations, with a surviving link in the form of an non-traditionally conceived kind-hearted protagonist, whose prematurely terminated mental development the film transforms into visual form and cuts off his development physically as part of an unusual reversal that has a chance to resonate a little longer than an excess of often too literal meanings and messages.

Throughout the first half the film is set in a world whose laws are kept under wraps from the audience with surprising perseverance at least until halfway through, thus making it minimalist by simply having the father and daughter hiding from the surroundings in a boarded-up house, and it creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, which is perhaps justified, but also perhaps only amounts to paranoid fear of an unknown enemy. In the second half, the truth comes out in full, while a number of hitherto vague, unclear, and illusory motifs are finally supplemented by meaning and context, the characters are assigned specific goals and finally, more action-packed trick scenes take place, which do serve the story and they are never used just for effect. Elements we know from American feature films with budgets in the hundreds of millions are used imaginatively and originally for the benefit of a remarkably told and cleverly constructed story, which deserves several sequels or a TV series, and is dominated by the great acting of the talented nine-year-old Lexy Kolker.

This is a conscientiously shot and impressively written sci-fi about several thousand passengers heading for Mars in a spaceship, which has to throw away all of its fuel after an accident and a deviation from its course. The ensuing many-year odyssey, following the demise of human civilization through a changing atmosphere in an isolated community left behind, in which hope, and the meaning of existence gradually die, delightfully builds up a couple of key characters (especially the main protagonist) and the world in which the story takes place. Beneath the spectacular surface, one can even find an intellectually deep, provocative and uncompromising vision, the realization of which, however, is somewhat hampered by the fact that the story stays in one place for too long, barely escalates, and in the end, when the film is trying to catch everything up, it doesn’t provide enough space to the final devastating images so that they can resonate sufficiently.

An incredibly powerful and emotionally impressive fantasy-drama about a community of ageless weavers who are one day banished to the world of ordinary people. When one of them, 15-year-old Maquia, adopts a human newborn, the baby grows and ages while she doesn't change. Since it is necessary for the weavers to hide, the two protagonists must move from place to place, their relationship constantly changing. For Maquia, the boy is first a son, then a brother, and finally a father, until their paths go separate ways. All of this takes place against the backdrop of the collapse of a formerly powerful kingdom and an impending war. The beautiful story, which effectively thematizes the power of maternal love, lacks only a more consistent initiation into the mythology of the fantasy world, and the not-very-elaborate side storyline with the royal couple takes up a little too much space. Everything else is originally designed, beautifully written and naturally touching.

The film shows minimalist beginnings of the settlement of the Wild West from the point of view of a woman who is haunted by a demon from the prairie during her husband's absence. This psychologically constructed horror is aided by its non-linear storytelling, which jumps surprisingly clearly between several timelines, in which the tragedies of two friendly married couples are gradually systematically revealed. The above-average actors and above-average director successfully try to build tension and mystery without falling into routine or showing too much. The film is more of a psychological drama than a horror film, but cleverly and capably implemented. The funny thing is that the film revolving around female heroines, which was also directed and written by women, is basically about how the heroines are not ok mentally.

A delicately, sensitively, and empathetically-told story from the point of view of a four-year-old boy, whose parents have another child. The parents are forced to pay plenty of attention to the new child, which the former boy dislikes and therefore falls into various time and fantasy levels, where various members of his family from the ancient past and the near future help him cope with this new situation. This is a beautifully made film with emphasis on the poetics of familiar events from family life, originally spiced with children's imagination and presented nostalgically, touchingly and amusingly. The protagonist sometimes unnecessarily screams too much and is annoying to the point of being unsympathetic, but this is also the only fundamental compliant I have about the film.

A visually appealing and outrageously sexy thriller with an interesting story about camgirl, who earns money by streaming her erotic online show on the Internet, where she tries to succeed in numerous competitions and gain as many viewers as possible. But then a mysterious duo suddenly steals her profile, and thereby her job. Soon they begin to also rob her of her privacy... This film is a remarkable and sympathetically open insight into the lives of young girls, who do not hesitate to expose themselves and in fact carry out prostitution on the Internet with anonymous users. It is filmed surprisingly dynamically, with a sense of black humor and the bizarreness of certain sexual deviations, by very capable creators who cleverly express themselves with regard to the current state of life on the Internet and streaming services. The wonderfully constructed plot is also impressive, during which the protagonist becomes the victim of a devilish scheme which, unfortunately, remains unexplained. Who concocted the scheme and how he or she succeeded are questions that are a mystery left to free interpretation. Which is quite a shame.

After the clearly fantastic Brawl in Cell Block 99, the film Dragged Across Concrete is dramatically more moderate and has also slowed down in brutality and compactness, but it catches up to these aspects through its broad-based storytelling style. The story can basically be summarized as a one-time surveillance action of two suspended police partners who, with the vision of big profit, get involved in a criminal enterprise, which gradually grows over their heads. However, S. Craig Zahler conceived the (great) hour-long story as a procedural crime drama with almost three times the length, in which each key character must have long exposition with a clearly defined history, motivations and family background (in Brawl in Cell Block 99 he had one such character, while here there are at least three, which dilutes the narrative dynamics a bit), even for those heroes who don’t necessarily need it (the whole ten-minute intermezzo with Jennifer Carpenter, culminating in a bank robbery, is in itself an excellent and highly impressive short film, but which has minimal importance in relation to the surrounding events). The cleverly directed, ingeniously constructed, penetrating and consistently honest complex film sometimes lacks pace (especially in dialogue passages) and, in the sense of sparsely dosed violence, also a moment of surprise, when scenes leading to something bloody can often be predicted in advance. Nevertheless, the plot develops unpredictably and all aspects of the film are very professional. Vince Vaughn has a much sleeker role this time, while Mel Gibson is a great teammate and one can also enjoy the criticism of exaggerated political correctness in connection with the police brutality hyped in the media. Compared to Brawl in Cell Block 99, the film is not entirely stunning and emotionally devastating, although that film sets a bar that probably can’t be improved upon.

A powerful survival drama about human tenacity, determination and strength to survive at all costs, dominated by Mikkelsen with his top performance and a screenplay that is able to take full advantage of the seemingly hopeless situation, the bleakness of the Arctic environment and economical props. The consistently escalating tension and gradual tightening of the conditions that the heroically capable, persistent and good protagonist has to face in all respects capture your attention from beginning to end, even though the film finds itself on the verge of unbelief a few times.