J*A*S*M

Cohen makes fun of absolutely everything, often in a very crude way, but it works out for him. It’s incredibly funny, satirical, politically incorrect and intentionally embarrassing, but as a film, the story is a bit haphazard. But who cares when you’re having such great fun?

Didn’t Jiří Paroubek by any chance commission this film for his election campaign, to graphically show his flock how evil, arrogant and criminal are the rich, who exploit all the decent poor folk at best, and cruelly torture and murder them at worst? I wouldn’t be surprised. Otherwise, Invitation Only is a passable and at times quite brutal slasher that blends screenwriting insanity with entertainment, in a proportion that barely leaves a relatively positive feeling after a first viewing.

Surprisingly, Tarantino has fulfilled his promise and made a film that in his post-2000 filmography will have the same privileged status as Pulp Fiction had in the 1990s. You could praise pretty much everything about it, from the performances, through the script and the sharp dialogues, to some perfectly directed scenes (the beginning, the climax in the cinema, Shoshanna’s getting ready…). Inglourious Basterds is the best film I’ve seen in the cinema so far this year and I think District 9, Antichrist and Avatar are the only ones with chances to be better. PS: The last line of the film could have been said by Quentin himself.

A remarkably perfect film, both formally and in terms of contents, however inappropriate that might sound :-)

Interesting. This film had everything for me to like it more, but it didn’t happen. The premise is attractive, the performances are good and the atmosphere is decent, and yet, The Jacket only flowed around me as if by the way. The script is to blame, it fails to use the premise in an original way, like the script of other films about travelling to the future, and it left me with the impression that it didn’t know where it was going. The Jacket is still above average, but in such as sterile and unremarkable way that I find it less interesting that a lot of (below) average films.

I put it on right at midnight, with the lights off and the headphones on, expecting to feel truly scared after a long time. In the end it wasn’t that hot, but I’ll admit that the film did deliver a couple of unpleasant moments (in the good sense of the word). Maybe, if it’d been my first encounter with the franchise, I would’ve been more scared, but after my experience with Toshio and Kayako, I knew when I could expect the jump-scares and those ghosts could no longer terrify me that much. In any case, a first-rate ghost story and 8/10.

Two years ago, Argento’s conclusion of the Witch’s Trilogy felt like something from another world (and another era), and the same could be said about his new film. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the period of Deep Red, Opera and Tenebrae, but this time without any remarkable visuals. I don’t think that’s bad because the less Argento fools around with forms, the better he works with the actors, though here there’s still plenty of his typical play with colours – red and yellow in almost every scene. The film has a decent story, good actors, excellent (but not gratuitous) gore and a very good climax that, unfortunately, fails to go all the way. I will pretend I didn’t see the last scene :-) 7/10

I will recommend the haters of the Saw franchise to have a look at the Ju-On franchise. That’s what I call recycling! Formally, The Grudge: Old Lady in White is not bad, but it gets you bored even with a 60 minute runtime, which is something really unprecedented. Pointing out that the best years of long haired ghosts are gone is a waste time. There will be a sequel regardless.

Well, it seems I can add another entry to my list of imaginary certainties: I will never see a worse film than Vampitheatre. I don’t even want to think about the sort of monstrosity that could surpass it. If there was a way to verify it, I would give a point to the first person to watch this film entirely, in one go and without skipping. :-D

This was a massive stress test for my habit of not turning off (apparently) good films because of an irrelevant feeling of boredom. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. This time, unfortunately, I regretted it because A Tale of Two Sisters didn’t satisfy me in any aspect. I don’t mind intricate films, provided the plot is also intricate, what I don’t like is nonsense that pretends to be interesting with non-traditional and almost indecipherable narrative techniques. That’s not genius, that’s posing. Disappointment, I liked the bland American remake a lot more .