Malarkey

If you want, you can binge watch this TV show in one session. You see, Danny McBride got for himself another character who keeps criticizing others, complaining, who is selfish, mean, annoying, arrogant and who only does good things for himself and who is the champion of cynical bullshit. Well, and he placed all this into the setting of a school, which is a place that was dying to have him. Essentially, in terms of humor, it’s a copy of Eastbound & Down. Only the characters are different, the plot is different and the setting is different. But this is a setting that could be milked for ten more seasons. And I will be glad to wait for them. Also, I have to admit that if they hadn’t cast the blonde hottie Georgia King and the faggot Goggins, this TV show would only be half as good. So, it’s a complete win and I am carefully waiting for what will happen after the first season, since the season one finale was quite unexpected.

It’s been a long time since I came across some nice children’s adventure on Saturday morning and The Boy in the Mirror looked quite promising. But in the end, everything about it was stupid. If I wanted to pick an example of a really stupid movie, I would pick this one. There really is nothing good about it, but at the same time it’s not downright horrible. It’s simply shitty.

A French-Romanian small-scale flick, which doesn’t look French at all, but on the other hand, it features a squad of average French young actors. They kept annoying me with their heroic bullshit for the entire time. I guess I developed a dislike for them when back in the day I read an article on young people in Europe in which the French won first place as the biggest ruckus-causers and destroyers of Prague. And mind you, this film features the quieter part of French people whose biggest hobby is chess. Imagine who of the people around you might like chess. They are usually calm and quiet people, right? But I guess they are not French because if they were, you could smell trouble coming.

Americans are pretty wacky if they are willing to make a musical on the topic of marriage. And Anna Kendrick and that voice of hers making an appearance in the millionth musical is starting to piss me off. And I quite like her, or rather I did. But through that endless singing, she is now all ruined for me.

I’d been looking forward to an historically accurate drama portraying Chile under the leadership of then dictator Pinochet. But I hadn’t expected that this movie would be so accurate that it would also use image to try to transport me to the 1980’s. And truth be told, the historical accuracy was pretty strong. What was worse was the picture, which reminded me of the picture quality in the worst C-list movies from the 1980’s recorded on worn-out VHS tapes, I guess it was supposed to invoke the proper historic atmosphere. So, I can hardly say that the movie wasn’t original, but I do have to admit that I didn’t manage to get used to this manner of storytelling. The skipping of individual scenes and intentional cuts like in the times of the commies might look interesting, but in connection with the accurate historic description of even the slightest fart of an ordinary cleaning lady at the “No” movement, it comes across as rather boring at times.

I like how (the Czech streaming platform called) Stream has no problem getting good actors and coming up with a good idea. This is not the first time – it’s at least the second time when something they produced really caught my attention. The Devourers had a great idea and even though the show was absolutely wacky, I still managed to watch it to the end. And I even learnt a little something from Mikluš and Míra. For instance, it’s not that long ago that I cooked sausage goulash using high-quality smoked meats from France, flour from Poland, onion from Greece, potatoes from Georgiaand ground habanero peppers from South America. You know how it is… Czech dishes but taken to perfection! Or I might be lying to you and it’s not worth squat. The main thing is that it tastes good, right. Yeah and Jana Plodková made me really happy with the crazy character!

Denmark did it again and they made a movie that once again tends to react to the taboos in society. In this case, the topic is dementia and the movie involves a number of senior citizens afflicted with the illness. But the movie is trying very hard to be sensitive and it isn’t trying to induce a severe depression in the viewers. And that’s despite the fact that this is actually part of the job description for a standard Danish movie. So, the result was that I spent a while thinking about how things are going to look for me one day only to realize that the outcome might be whatever for me. Nevertheless, I also read several reviews here and I have to agree with what the user misterz wrote. The thing is that you cannot really compare a Czech (or Slovak) old folks’ home to one in Denmark. Simply go somewhere abroad and check out German senior citizens – see how good and well-preserved they look? That, however, changes nothing about the fact that pensioners from both countries would agree with the idea of this movie. Both the well-preserved ones from the west and the not-so-well-preserved ones from the Czech Republic. And I am happy to reward this idea with a four-star review for this film.

The Estonian-Finnish cinematography friends once again joined their forces to tell the strong story of the Estonian people on whose territory the Germans and the Russians formed a corridor across Eastern Europe. And personally, I must say that it was some pretty interesting storytelling. You see, I’d had no idea about what was happening in Estonia during World War Two and this movie gave me a clear explanation. It is divided into two parts. One of them is German and the other one is Russian. They are both disgusting and they turn people into killing machines. And Estonia wasn’t even what the war was about, either. Technically, the film was well-made, it only took me a while to get used to the action sequences, which have been shot in a rather aesthetic, but also quite strange manner. On the other hand, this is not the first war movie from Finland/Estonia, so once again we can expect not only the military equipment but also the plot to be of a high quality. Especially the story, which is trying to be as close to reality as possible. Once again at the expense of leaving less space for emotions, but that’s something that I got used to when it comes to their war movies.

A properly told military drama from WW2, once again from a slightly different perspective. This time from the point ofview of a Danish soldier. For instance, you will find out that the infantry wasn’t supported by the tank division, but at least they learnt how to change the tube on a bicycle in half a minute. One can hardly be surprised then that the Germans sliced Europe in half at the beginning of the war with their Blitzkrieg as easily as a blunt knife would cut a stick of butter that had been lying in the sun for half an hour. Seems Europe was simply there for the taking. Apart from this discovery, the movie offers a good deal of Danish pride, which is reflected also in the final scene. That’s nothing new on the face of the earth, but it proves that even European cinematography can make a good war movie.

I’m glad that James Wan didn’t turn his back to the horror movie genre, as he had originally claimed, and that he filmed another mysterious story from the life beyond the stage. And I honestly say that I ignored the illogicalities – and there were quite a few of those – and I was enjoying the high-quality cinematography, which took me to places I didn’t expect and that also told a story that was interesting from its beginning to its end. I also have to add that I liked how the director didn’t necessarily lean only towards the horror movie as a genre and that he had a go at a couple of funny moments executed in proper British dry humor. I also thought that some of the scenes that looked like they fell out of Tim Burton’s head were pretty great. I simply didn’t watch this movie to get scared. I was mainly looking forward to the movie telling another ghost story, which is something that has been quite fashionable recently.