Necrotongue

There’s no way I can go below five stars with this film. Despite its dismal plot, it was a pure joy to watch. I was grunting with bliss, which was in perfect tune with the archbishop's squealing. Clergy instantly became one of my favorite films from the world of organized crime. Even the most feared mafia organizations must feel like a bunch of amateurs compared to the Catholic Church. I just haven’t decided who’s worse - the priests or the parents who keep supplying them with new material. An excellent film.

I was so close to giving the film a higher rating. I won't go into much detail about historical/technical goofs this time. Let me just say how weird the frequent one on one combat scenes seemed to me. At the time when Luftwaffe was attacking Britain, I would expect the airspace to be a bit more crowded. I was also disappointed that the programmers didn’t produce more bombers. I would have enjoyed it more. What I also didn’t like was the fighting/time-off ratio. The flashbacks seemed somewhat chaotic to me, I had trouble following the sequence of events at times. On the other hand, I didn't mind the Polish pride and flashy patriotism in the film at all. I quite like Poles and I think their courage and abilities are supported by historical evidence. If the plot was more focused on air combat, I would have given four stars. This way, I give 3*+.

I’m not sure if I managed to figure out all the films that this film rips off, but off the top of my head it’s: Cube, Saw, Final Destination and House of 9. The result was that I felt like I had already seen every bit of the film before. It did not impress or surprise me and I basically consider it a pointless effort.

I decided to watch both film versions made twenty years apart in one afternoon. The comparison didn’t turn out very well for the remake. I found the children's funeral "procession" amusing. Knowing Americans, something like that would be an incentive for another Salem, it smacked too much of pagan rituals that have no place in the most democratic country on the planet. Black Pascow looked as if he had been attacked by an angry Wolverine. I’m not a huge fan of Jason Clarke. John Lithgow, whom I do like, got too little screen time as Jude. I couldn't even enjoy any potential atmosphere, because the creators bet on the dumbest jump scares and the final cover by Starcrawler was a bad joke.

The film doesn’t deviate too much from the book, and no wonder since the screenplay also has the author's name on it. You can really tell it was filmed thirty years ago. The necessary shortening of the book also took its toll, and some parts of the story seem unfinished, half-baked or illogical, because of the lacking context. Despite all these shortcomings, I had fun watching the film again. Its atmosphere still works, and I also enjoyed the final Ramones song. Those who haven’t read the book won’t understand the significance of the band for the film, but I’m moderately excited about it.

I only watched the film because I was curious about the winner of the Czech Lion Awards. Well, Hastrman was brilliant compared to this. This pointless wandering of two teenagers didn’t impress me much (except for certain moments). The length of some scenes was clearly exaggerated and the constant cutaways to nature imagery reminded me of spring water commercials. I did like Lenka Vlasáková in the film, though. She would probably break many a Czechoslovak partisan.

My biggest takeaway was that I learned about the Tribec mystery, which I had never heard of before. The authors unfortunately didn't provide much insight, I had to look up everything afterwards, which bummed me out. The story was extremely mysterious, and raised a lot of questions, but shrewdly left them unanswered. The acting performances were forced and unconvincing, the atmosphere didn’t work very well and all that hiking through the woods got a bit tedious at times.

Apparently, I still keep a certain level of naivety, because deep down I was secretly hoping to get a quality Czech comedy. Well, I didn’t... In a way, almost all romantic comedies are the same – the plot is painfully predictable. LOVEhunt was no exception. It was clear from the beginning who would end up with whom. There was obviously a number of obstacles, which was to be expected. The problem was that the film was really cringeworthy at times. I like Evelyn as a comedian, but as Eva Kramerová, the actress, she was very unconvincing. I didn't understand the character of Eva played by Romana Goščíková at all and I was far from satisfied, but... the film also managed to entertain me at times, Ester Geislerová gave a great performance (her eyelid twitch at the wedding was perfect), Jaroslav Plesl totally nailed his small role, and Jakub Prachař’s performance was a nice surprise as well.

Negatives: 1) I’m not very fond of Cameron Diaz. 2) Jason Segel's acting seems like a bad joke to me. 3) The authors could have gotten more out of Elizabeth. 4) Predictable plot. Positives: 1) Cameron Diaz wasn’t all that annoying in this film. 2) Justin Timberlake played exactly the kind of homo I consider him to be. 3) the character of Lynn Davis - confident and determined under all circumstances. 4) criticism of small-town hypocrisy.

I have a soft spot for Bill Nighy's quirky acting and for British comedy as such. Emily Blunt was the film’s eye-candy (in a damn interesting way), I laughed with both Ruperts and Martin Freeman lit everything up with his deranged smile. A satisfying experience.