Othello

The first installment struck me as a jacked-up, anachronistic, infantile, moronic bore in which nothing happened half the time. The reason I found the second part to be a successful and entertaining albeit silly adventure surprised me myself, so I'll write it out here as therapy. Because it's the added quasi-family aspect that finally confronts Reacher with some sort of problem that makes him have no time to just wink grandly into the camera at the viewer, who knows nothing can happen to him anyway because he's exactly what he always wanted to be in his fantasies. Whereas the first film threw problems in the hero's path that he is used to solving and was always the boss on his own turf, here his need to solve situations on his own and be responsible only for himself clashes with the need to push the cart together with his supposed daughter and the runaway major for whom he has an emotional weakness. So suddenly he is not the master of every scene, but rather a somewhat unhappy asocial whose whining that it can't be like this, that he is used to being a lone wolf, is actually a necessary apology for the macho first installment, where he gave everyone and everything a hard time. Despite this, he's still that conservative, dreamboat hero of dads raised on Bond movies, whose disjointedness and James Dean-esque loneliness as an American wanderer hitchhiking in a white T-shirt along Route 66 is inspiring in such a distant way that he belongs more in the realm of guy dreams than appealing to a change in lifestyle. Perhaps that's why the film received such unkind reviews around the world when two women and a kind of need for responsibility suddenly intruded on this purely male escapist concept. However, with Reacher still retaining its concept of old-fashioned retro, and therefore appealing to the 40+ audience more than any other contemporary mainstream film, some images of gender progressiveness must be appreciated. Namely, the most intense defusing of an adversary with a rubber hose is entrusted here to Cobie Smulders. Or the scene in the hotel room, where these beautiful, fit people move around in their underwear without arousing any interest, which no one even comments on, it's just taken for granted. A shocking situation for a post-Bond audience. A pretty boy and a pretty girl can be friends or partners. The last positive I need to highlight is the cleverly constructed script. It doesn't really matter what the movie is about, of course, but for example, almost every scene works with more than just one piece of information used to move the plot forward, but usually brings in two or more that will be capitalized on later. For example, the disarming of the two mercenaries outside the diner not only brings the hero information about the organization they work for, but the bruised knuckles from that conflict also serve as major evidence later on to get him arrested. The bond between the Major and Reacher's "daughter" is also built through one teaching the other how to dodge a bullet, both of which we know will eventually be capitalized on later in the story.

Dramaturg wanted! or, A spectacular debate between "I'm really, really sorry, but..." and "I'm sorry, but...". Yet, with all due respect, I doubt that Čapek and Haas were doing this on purpose to perfectly capture the endless and tedious cycle of peace negotiations, waiting for the first million dead to get somewhere even remotely moving. The second half, in particular, is already going like a hamster in a wheel, and one wishes that The White Disease itself had a slightly faster pace to give the Marshal's decision-making process a bit of that time lapse. However, looking around and around, one sadly realizes how relevant this parable, simple though it may be, about fanatical mobs and the need for national self-identification through the oppression of others, remains after eighty freaking years. So I'll save the three stars for later, ideally when the message is no longer relevant and the film looks appropriately ridiculous.

Ellis had been thinking for so long about how he was actually going to conceive the film when suddenly filming started here. The result is a jagged mutant that straddles the line between a classic wartime love in the times of Nazi cholera and a stripped-down historical reenactment with occasional glimpses of Hollywood narrative crutches (the recurring motifs of putting a bullet in the chamber, Shakespeare, Geislerová under the hose). The result is a dull grey where you don't give a damn. The romantic storyline is uninteresting because the characters are completely alien and impenetrable, and the relationship entanglements in turn detract from the reenactment. There are strengths in the sub-elements that Ellis can dabble in, especially in the second half, and that's why the assassination itself and the action climax in the church manage to hook you appropriately with their relentlessness, intensity, and confused subjective camerawork. This raises the question, then, of where the scenes came from where we have a close-up of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the hands of one character reading perhaps the most famous line from the play to another, whereupon he dramatically slams the volume shut and says "That was Shakespeare." The only thing that thus ties the whole thing together is the fecal brownish filter with which it is smeared. And by the way, the ones who once again lose the whole Operation Anthropoid thing here are the Germans, who again fill their roles from dozens of computer shooter games, where their role is either to yell German and bully civilians in the street, or to yell German and climb into the heroes' wounds. That's how you conquer two-thirds of Europe, it takes real savvy.

The complete antithesis of the contemporary action film, whose boundless pointlessness honestly entertained me with every frame. A disastrous plot, horribly propelled forward by dialogue that rarely bridges the pragmatic line of "Are you OK?" "They hit me." "Shit.", incredibly crappy digital tricks, and Jason Statham's naked tough guy ethos, whose voice leaves bruises on your skin, combine to create a likable, brainy spectacle that you'll immediately forget. I was even more beside myself with happiness after discovering that it cost 40 million to make, because budgets this mismanaged are to be cherished. I'll never get the foggy Rio out of my dreams again. For the other destinations, I had fun just counting down to what rank Statham's Mechanic would have won in Hitman. I could feel my brain softening. More!

Teenagers deserve their movies, and Nerve does that well, however much its focus on the current state of social interaction makes it topical for about four minutes. Still, it does an excellent job visually of looking at the world through the screen, especially with the neon lights nonsensically strewn about the set, the accentuation of color, the frequent up shots, or the overall conception of big-city youth as an extravagant fashion show. The real world is thus loosely intertwined with the virtual one, reflecting the concept of seeing reality through a colored image, where I can always choose what reality will look like. The soc-transition itself predictably gets brutally out of hand at the end and the film turns into total idiocy, but up to that point it's quite enjoyable, constantly stirring the pot and, most importantly, visually captivating.

I'm not the target audience, but for kids it's the perfect recreation of the big boy stories from the days when any glimpse beyond the homestead was an invitation to great adventure. This time, as the times demand, with a girl heroine who struggles to come to grips with her position in a man's world. Though her character's qualities, which aren't backed up by much of anything, are perhaps a little too paper thin, it’s still probably fine for kids. It's gratifying that the travails of the polar circle expedition are represented in particular by Sartre with his "Hell is Other People." and the acceptance of death as part of life. On the other hand, the minimalist animation and the stoned music arouse the suspicion that kilos of Xanax were an indispensable part of the creative team, and the simple animation of the faces in particular flattens all the character development. But, as I say, great for little tykes. PS: is it just me, or is the potato slicing scene ingeniously hidden intercourse behind the screen of an animated film? The closed door, the potatoes splashing into the pot of water, the dishes clattering and creaking due to the waves, the determination in the eyes, and the later reckoning even with a parting gift... I really don't know...

Compared to the utterly useless documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, Super Duper Alice Cooper has one major bonus, which is how it maps the musical underground of the late sixties and early seventies, in which I was almost surprised at how unconventional Alice Cooper sounded at the time, even if they ended up moving into the primitive eighties hey hey rock (though I have to admit that "I'm Eighteen" is the bomb). And yet the mere glimpse of a time when the ugliest men in the world were boredly ripping apart the prettiest girls west of the Mississippi is actually satisfaction enough to justify watching incompetent and not particularly interesting alcoholics robbing their mothers' closets. The documentary itself undermines any credibility with horrible montages of photographs, as if the filmmakers had just discovered some new editing program, and we can only speculate whether the things we see in the photographs were actually happening when it was taken, given such a manipulated result; still, it is gratifying to learn from the filmmakers that by '83 the character of Alice Cooper had ceased to be of any interest, even though he continues to perform with success to this day. In doing so, they subtly reveal that the whole 80s musical storm was not only visually but also musically a total sham. If only the same could finally reach all the filthy Queens.

The internet is a movie! The castration of Eastern European philosophy into one-sentence lessons, shots of children and nature through all sorts of primitive filters, free association, context-free dictated trivia culled from some kind of "20 Things You Didn't Know About the World Around Us"; there are even mobile phone videos of a dog playing the piano. This is exactly how I imagine the FB wall of a wealthy housewife somewhere in the suburbs after her adult children have left home. Yet the whole monologue is told in a creepily affected Štěpánka Haničincová style. I'm pretty convinced that if someone sat me down in a coffee shop across from Laurie Anderson, I'd slit my wrists from boredom within five minutes.

A great genre exercise that excels at exactly what the given jewelry box needs, namely that for all the little ideas, suspenseful scenes, unexpected reversals, and overall intensity, you completely fail to perceive more than one logical barrier. Detroit is also starting to become my favorite horror destination after It Follows or Only Lovers Left Alive. Empty houses, empty streets, empty people, and the feeling that if you get lost you'll never be found again, all set against the backdrop of the hardscrabble fresh socio-economic history of the whole place. Suck it Blumhouse, this is how it's supposed to be.

Finely boring rape&revenge about one and a half rooms with practically nothing in them, where 80% of the shots are medium close-ups. The Afterdark production is no excuse, it has been home to some often enjoyable horror rompers.