gudaulin

I may be too harsh about this parody of mafia movies, but unfortunately, it is based on too simplistic and cheaper humor, exactly the kind that I dislike and avoid as much as possible. The individual gags could be functional, but they are devalued by the effort to appeal to the widest range of viewers. There are definitely worse comedy movies than this one, but I had a major problem finishing it. The observation that Michael Keaton in this film acts like Jim Carrey did at the beginning of his career is quite accurate. Unfortunately. Overall impression: 25%.

Intellectuals who appreciate the appropriate intellectual nourishment, such as refined works of Tarkovsky or Bergman, should avoid this film like the plague, as it falls into a completely different category within Tarantino's style. We find ourselves in the realm of mass popular culture, specifically crime dramas set in New York, where two mafia clans compete with each other, filled with cynical jokes and one-liners. The screenplay is far from the best in this subgenre, and truth be told, Lucky Number Slevin is one of those films that are worth watching once, with no need to revisit them. If I had the desire and opportunity to see it again, I would mercilessly lower my percentage and star rating. However, I can recommend it for a single viewing, unless you want to dissect the nonsensically convoluted path of the protagonist's revenge. The lighthearted tone and the presence of several acting talents significantly contribute to this, particularly the seasoned genre veteran Bruce Willis. With his typically stone-faced expression and dry one-liners, he marches from one scene to another, leaving behind only the dead bodies of his enemies. Meanwhile, despite the misery of his work, the screenwriter has a few surprises up his sleeve for the audience, so even your sense of the genre game won't be left wanting. Overall impression: 75%.

A Time for Drunken Horses is a typical festival film and exactly the kind of Iranian production that film critics and the festival audience are amazed by and speak of Iranian cinema only in superlatives. However, this category of films makes up only a fraction of Iranian production, which focuses on average melodramas tailored to the taste of an uneducated audience. It is essentially a documentary about the hard life of mountaineers in a border province far from the prosperity of oil fields and urban culture. Additionally, and this is also typical for success at festivals, it portrays the world of children and includes the motif of physical disability or handicap of one of the story's characters. The director's typical approach is to use non-actors, which may work for some people, but unfortunately, I do not belong to this category. As a depiction of social conditions in the area, it is naturally powerful, but as a fictional film, where I would appreciate a quality screenplay and performances, it is insufficient. So in the end, I lean towards three stars and a 60% overall impression.

The film has decent visuals and especially excellent music, yet the overall impression is quite ambiguous. It is deceiving in certain ways. Dreamlike scenes that take us to the most glorious era of 1930s Hollywood, as well as the characters' approach to their life reality, clearly tempt us to consider the film as a parody of classic gangster movies, and this theme has great comedic potential. However, the screenwriter ultimately steers it in a completely different direction against the viewer's expectations, resulting in an uninspiring and ineffective reconstruction of an ancient criminal act. Expectations dissolve and the final impression is awkward. I would rate it at around 40%.

Paper Moon is reminiscent of classical Hollywood, which was very skilled at working with predictable human emotions and excelled at the craft of filmmaking in its melodramas. However, it had two fundamental flaws, namely sentimentality and the associated naivety in its approach to characters and social reality. Peter Bogdanovich avoided these two flaws in his comedy-drama set in interwar America, creating a charming film about the relationship between a small-time swindler and a sharp-witted orphan, who clearly inherits the influence of her mother, who earns a living through the oldest profession. The itinerant bible salesman and trader of human naivety may think he can quickly get rid of the feisty girl and make a profit, but she has a different idea and the skills to achieve it. It is true that little Tatum O'Neal mostly relies on her defiant expression throughout the film, and I can recall many more convincing child actors, as well as the fact that more could have been done with a similar storyline. Nevertheless, the film is of high quality due to its elegance and lack of pandering. Overall impression: 85%.

In my reviews regarding animated films, I often criticize the prevailing Disney-style production and American slapstick for their uniformity, pandering, and dominance. Here I had a unique opportunity to see the complete opposite of such productions, and once again, I am not satisfied. I have seen expressions of admiration for imagination, dreaminess, poetry, or creativity, and in principle, I agree that these attributes can be attributed to Chomet's work. However, Chomet fails in one very important aspect, which is the story. This would have been sufficient for a charming short film; after all, I enjoy many similar alternative films from the works of Priit Pärn and many other independent animators from around the world. However, on the scale of a full-length film, this film becomes too stretched out and therefore exhausting. It lacks the art of brevity, compactness, and dynamics. The famous creator is simply playing around, and the viewer doesn't really matter to him. Yes, it has a very decent rating, which I think is related precisely to how much this film deviates from the current world production. My two stars primarily represent excellent visual design and the aforementioned creativity rather than my overall impression, which, considering what has been written above, is genuinely mediocre, and I would rate it at around 40%.

Manhattan is considered by film critics as one of the most important and highest-quality films by Allen, but to be honest, it didn't impress me as much for a simple reason. It concentrates on all the main and favorite motifs of Allen's work - emotionally unstable intellectuals, the city of New York, favorite music, criticism of intellectual snobbery, loneliness, unfulfilled romantic desires, and nostalgia. Because I saw Manhattan later than many of Woody's other films (and there were quite a few of them due to his overproduction), those previous films played a more significant role for me. Not to mention that I appreciate the much more comedic early Allen or the late experimenting version of him. In Manhattan, there are certainly classic Allen slapstick tones, but the motif of sadness and nostalgia is much stronger in the form when family relationships were far more understandable and stronger, divorces and custody battles were exceptional, and people were closer to each other. Of the two fateful women in Woody Allen's life, I like Diane Keaton much more than Mia Farrow, but even that didn't get Allen a fourth star this time, even though everyone in the film delivers honest acting work. Finally, the greatest impression is made by the black-and-white cinematography and the dreamlike photographic scenes of the nocturnal panorama of Manhattan and the most famous New York architectural wonders, as well as similarly shot scenes of the connection between the two tragic protagonists of this sad love story. Overall impression: 65%.

There is the murder of a young woman in the film, but it is, overall, more of an interesting psychological study of human loneliness, bitterness, and alienation than a classic crime drama. In the first half of the film, the screenwriter still lets us wander and thanks to fragmented scenes and a non-linearly told story, it raises a number of questions in the viewer about the role of the individual characters of the drama. However, in the middle of the film, it reveals its cards and the film works primarily due to the emotions of pity for the tragic character of the eccentric tailor. Monsieur Hire lives alone and his only companions are white mice in a terrarium. Furthermore, besides occasional visits to the brothel, his only hobby is spying on the charming neighbor across the street. However, one day one of them takes a step toward being closer together... But it's not a love drama, it's a bitter story of unfulfilled feelings. It is a slow film where even a relentless boxing match is accompanied by the tones of classical music. Overall impression: 80%.

I am going to be much soberer and in opposition to film fans on FilmBooster, who ranked Seven in the top ten, I have to say that in my opinion, the film has only one, but very significant plus in the form of David Fincher's atmospheric direction. Just like elsewhere in his work, he works magic with the camera, carefully creates scenes, plays with sound and imagery, and everything is subordinated to maximum effect and audience experience. Unfortunately, at the expense of logic, it is simply straightforward. Instead of being a crime thriller, it leans more toward the horror genre, specifically foreshadowing the later successful horror series Saw. The screenplay is overly complicated, just like in similarly tuned films with a brilliant manipulator, such as Primal Fear, and this simply would not work in reality. It is interesting to observe several film details where Fincher subordinates everything to the atmosphere. For example, wherever the characters enter, it must be dimmed and for God's sake, no one should press the light switch. They use flashlights or the room is sparsely illuminated by red flashes, to emphasize the gloominess of the environment and its mystery. The director chooses the most repulsive environments, neglected and dirty alleys on the outskirts, and old buildings with peeling facades, and plays even more with the interiors. These are usually much more dirty and devastated than would be possible in reality. The camera revels in decay and mold, which would have already alerted the surrounding tenants to some irregularities. The police officers enter an apartment with their guns raised and proceed to the last room, where they only then lift the cover off the victim, suddenly clutching their noses. Again, Fincher subordinates everything to the element of surprise. It is good to compare the dynamically shot chase scene in an apartment building with the chase scene on the roofs and in the apartments of an Arab quarter in The Bourne Supremacy. While the latter fits organically into the story, here the culprit should be able to run down the stairs and disappear through the main exit, but that would, of course, be artistically unattractive, so Fincher lets his villain and the pursuer run through parts of the house that probably no one has yet built and will never build because it would be an unapprovable architectural masterpiece. There are many similar absurdities, but the power of Fincher's unmistakable directorial style is so pronounced that it reliably conceals them in the eyes of the majority of viewers. Even I have to appreciate the atmospheric nature of the scene where Brad Pitt has a gun to his head and expects a shot. The brutality of the individual crimes naturally also captures the audience's interest, but my impression is lowered by the philosophical framework of the drama, with which I do not identify in the least. While another Fincher film, Fight Club, seemed like a great portrayal of the phenomenon of rebellion, anarchy, and consumerism in a modern metropolis, here the nihilism and depression seem inappropriate to me. Overall impression: 60%.

Mike Hodges' film is interesting. An atypically shot and realistic gangster film, with the support of the star Michael Caine, should have the potential to become a cult film, thanks to its bloody revenge story. However, it is emotionally cold and distant in its execution, reminiscent of Michael Haneke's later work, and that may be why some people use the term "boring" in their reviews. At the same time, I am somewhat bothered by unfinished or improbable details, such as the gun our anti-hero takes to the busy city to carry out his revenge. Parading around with it in broad daylight on busy streets is not exactly logical, although you could say it's effective. An American remake was made based on the motifs of this classic British film, with Sylvester Stallone in the lead role, but it didn't come close to the qualities of its original for understandable reasons. Today's fans of popcorn movies may be put off by the somewhat unusual editing and longer scenes, but for me, it gains in attractiveness as a film that stands out from the crowd. Overall impression: 65%.