lamps

It’s really nice to see that a star-studded, studio Oscar-bait movie can be delivered without gratuitous emotions, and that it relies solely on the actors, formal precision and brilliant directing skills. First Man is an emotional drama about an individual who had to look ahead despite the unfavourable odds and in the end took the biggest step in the history of mankind. The story is simple and built on a series of moral clichés, but it’s also distinctive and wholesome thanks to its intimate subjective communicativeness (don’t expect any celebratory patriotic choruses during the key scenes). And yet, I still see unfulfilled potential. Portraying Armstrong as a machine who only cries once and keeps the same expression for the rest of the film is not the most fortunate choice (and Gosling’s traditionally minimalist acting style underscores it), and the script leans too much on the less interesting family aspects at the expense of Armstrong’s relationship with the other astronauts – this film could have been a wonderful epitaph to the loss of loved ones in order to fulfil a dream or the fate of an individual that surpasses the goal, if it had refrained from straddling between the personal, political and purely perceptive spheres and declaiming its greed so formally. As it is, it’s “only” an interestingly made biopic with great sound and a cosmic scope that perhaps plays a lesser role than you might expect (which is not bad).

Monstrous bullshit where some goo gets a word only after all those senseless dialogues that must be the product of a conversation between Rosamund Pilcher and a mad teenager. It doesn't get bogged down in shabby twists and turns, and the script goes for broke, so it doesn't really offend, but nor does it deliver any pleasant surprises. Why the hell does it focus so much on conflicts of parental trust and teenage rebellion a-la Rebel Without a Cause, when it's supposed to be (and could have been) a entertaining B-movie with a unique monster? Jack Arnold was only one…

To begin with, I certainly acknowledge the fury of the viewers who are comic-book fans and have a tendency to whine whenever their favourite hero in a film picks their nose with the wrong hand. The PG13 rating is of course a big punch in the dick of everyone with a long relationship with Venom, and I certainly understand that a buddy comedy doesn’t fit well with horror with a cosmic parasite, but whatever. Fortunately, I was able to accept the fact that this would not be about fate, thick atmosphere and stylish kills, so I dulled my brain and had great fun. I don’t agree at all with the opinions that the beginning is slower than a week at school. On the contrary, the pace is nice, the humour is not toe-curling, Hardy is great from the start and it was nice for a change to see a pure and unpretentious comic-book flick not overwhelmed with CGI sets or dozens of characters. Surely, I could probably point out to the oversimplification of the relationships between the characters or the continuity of the twists (it’s clear that they cut out a lot), but I was all the more impressed that even on this lighter and more straightforward level, the film works just fine, clearly fleshes out the characters' motives and just doesn't bore. The interaction between Venom and Eddie is a prank that the creators deliver well and at the right moments – and a lot of the credit goes to the excellent Hardy, whom I like a bit more now, and honestly I can think of only one other actor who would entertain me so much with his lively performance in every film, Jack Nicholson he’s called (though I don’t want to compare, no way). 70%, and I’m taking down a star after some time, it’s not that well executed and unfortunately, it’s not bad enough to be worthy of a guilty 4*.

Yeah, conscience is a bitch, and Conscience illustrates it nicely. At times, the atmosphere is too easygoing and the ending is like a moral for the young crowd, but making such a tasteful and interesting film with such a trivial premise is not an easy task. Krejčík's direction is top-notch, he gradually adds wood to the fire under the protagonist with very inventive visual storytelling (the doll or the forgotten glove are like something out of a Hitchcock film). The acting is also without major reservations; the son, in particular, got on my nerves, he handled that complicated role wonderfully.

It’s not bad at all. Toman was a very interesting figure and an ideal guide to the period of the blossoming of the Communist Party, because he was not exactly a model party member. The film is meticulous in its familiarity with the political mood and actors of the time and covers enough twists and motivations in the space of three years to never get boring despite the long runtime. This is despite the fact that the story and the direction seem too mechanical and that the preferred descriptive nature of the intimate narrative doesn’t let the plot escalate in an interesting way – it’s rather a sequence of many episodes connected by the titular character that form a complex study of communist practices, instead of the strong story of an individual I was hoping for (the latter only comes to the fore at the end, when all the previous lines have been closed or diverted into irrelevant digressions). It's a pity about the tendency to simplify everything (one example – weird introductory titles) in order to present so much information, because Trojan otherwise handles the concept well. I liked that they didn't want to pander to the comfort of viewers who have seen too many American biopics, and I was intrigued by the portrayal of Toman's ambiguous, emotionally distant character (which Macháček doesn't enrich with his austere acting, but surprisingly doesn't diminish either). The verdict is a strong 3*.

Apocalypse Now of the American West. A completely different western, and gorgeous. A structure based on Coppola's legend that takes you through a thematic landscape in search of epiphany and awareness, with great performances, a tender yet unsettling minimalist soundtrack and unprecedented spiritual depth, and an ending that will make you want to cry together with the protagonists. The filmmaking is deliberately austere, but Cooper scores again with a sensitive narrative that, while slow, can hardly be faulted in terms of the key emphasis on the interactions between the characters and the overall critical portrayal of America's ugly phase at the time. Perhaps there could have been fewer of those puzzling scenes by the fire and the development of the relationship between the captain and the chief is too fast, but this has no effect on the overall emotional and mental catharsis. How the hell didn't this have any Oscar nominations?!!

The most entertaining gangster flick ever – whether due to Ritchie's unapologetic style or the subversive story that is more of a backdrop for the incredible cast of brilliantly written and acted characters to have their fill. The direction is simply superb, with an entertaining staging that embellishes scenes that must be outrageously funny even on paper, and a ball-busting editing that gracefully brings together a large cast of characters who gradually converge towards a common goal. Add to that a brilliant soundtrack and the aforementioned actors, among whom stand out the gypsy Pitt and the iconic Rade Šerbedžija, who is harder to kill than Chuck Norris. This film has paid for Ritchie’s immortality, at least the editing of not few modern movies would look pretty different without his example.

One of the seminal films of 1930s socialist ideology – which is one of the main reasons I couldn't watch it consistently. In terms of filmmaking, it's not that awful, and the regular switching between the three main storylines keeps it somewhat watchable, but again it's marred by disastrous editing and tedious chatter about Soviet principles and heroism. I watched it only out of obligation, I wouldn’t have wasted my time voluntarily.

In his debut, Glazer goes to thematic levels that several experienced directors wouldn’t dare. Heat, bohemianism, love, hell from the past, violence, mobsters; It's got a bit of Tarantino, a bit of Scorsese and a dash of Guy Ritchie. As a whole, though, it falls far short of the dream combination of three different approaches (emphasis on punchy dialogue, emphasis on tension between the actors and camera work, emphasis on fast editing and connecting multiple temporally separated lines), but it's a consistently entertaining and, given the uniqueness of its own characters, original gangster flick that doesn't turn out the way anyone would initially expect (which is very good), but also fails to bring everything to a satisfying and memorable conclusion (which is not that good). Ben Kingsley's character is a captivating black-humoured figure you wouldn’t want to cross and who alone sets the sweaty dramatic dynamics of the first half, Winston's every facial gesture is believable and Ian McShane is a mobster who can make your blood run cold. That said, I don’t quite see Sexy Beast as something to watch enthusiastically more than once. 80%

An iconic, busty feminist flick, without which the world would not have known Tarantino's Death Proof forty years later, and it might have taken a lot longer for the Hollywood's version of unbridled and sinful through and through female heroines to take hold. Russ Meyer was a visionary when he figured out that men's fetish for women's breasts would be stronger in the long run than serious critical insight into a film, and created one that is admittedly vigorously idiotic (just about every character is an exemplary asshole), but amusingly disjointed; an atmospheric spectacle with a great voice that, thanks to the brisk pace, never gets boring and oozes that period moral decadence that every die-hard cinephile must love at least a little (and if you're Tarantino, you can upgrade it to the pinnacle of cinematic entertainment these days). It's pure bollocks, really, and the story isn't worth talking about, unlike Lori Williams who would be worth all the money in the world – she alone embodies that cult status beautifully.