Malarkey

I’ve always thought that Bond was a great guy who simply kills everybody and escapes even an earthquake epicenter in the blink of an eye, all while living in an absolutely unrealistic environment governed by the British MI5. That’s how it always used to be before Daniel Craig came along and added realness to the Bond toughness; realness that I’ve always missed. For example, Casino Royale is already perfect, I consider it to be the best Bond movie. The subsequent Quantum of Solace was a yawnfest and it was necessary for the authors to step up and film something… something simply unforgettable that would bring a bit of elegance into the saga. Skyfall is a not-so-realistic realistic not-so-Bond Bond movie. Bond isn’t such a champ as we know him anymore and at times, we even get worried about him. But there are still scenes that haven’t even as much as brushed up against the reality of the modern day. But even so, it’s still great fun. There’s loads of action. And even if it’s just decent, it’s still entertaining. Sam Mendes is an amazing director and you simply can’t take that away from him. The story isn’t that bad either and at last, a contemporary Bond returns to the past. But without a doubt, the best thing about the entire movie was Javier Bardem. I’ve only seen a villain this great in Batman, back when Joker appeared in the new series. And back then, I thought that such a villain could never be topped. But partly, the rating is actually this high because of him. It’d be boring without him. And don’t even get me started on the ending. The third Daniel Craig movie is just very well done. It’s not such a shocker anymore like Casino Royale was, but it’s still a really pleasant entertainment that attempts to be realistic, but it’s still just for fun. But Bond will never be any other way, so who cares?

It’s not as dark as Skyfall. Actually, objectively it is significantly worse than Skyfall. James Bond is like a walking robot in this one. He knocks down everyone who just look at him the wrong way. Nobody can stop him, and I literally mean nobody. Count on it being much worse than usually. Plus there is a huge amount of cool lines. Even though there are no emotions, it shows that kind of harshness possessed by old action heroes in the nineties, which I’ve never seen in any Bond movie with Daniel Craig before. It’s a pity that the title song is so extremely slow that it’s really a pain in the ass. Similarly, the arch enemy Christoph Waltz was not really scary. The only strong positive of this movie is Léa Seydoux, who was a great fit. Maybe because I’ve known her for a while now and she is nice to look at. A little bit different Bond movie, but when it comes to the good old action movies, it fulfilled my long-time desired dream.

You can basically expect anything from movies like 100 Bloody Acres. I was especially curious to see if I get some amusing non-PC fun; alas, it didn’t happen so I was watching a classic horror full of intentionally idiotic people who keep murdering each other in equally idiotic situations. So, a classic. I watched this for the Challenge Tour 2015.

Another of those pleasant German comedies from recent years, which are funny just enough to receive average rating. They neither offend you nor take your breath away; you have fun but don’t need to see them again. This particular one, however, has a bonus in the form of an unorthodox view of the consumerist society, which made me add one star to my rating.

On one end, there are endless discussions with patiens, activists and professors on the topic of AIDS. On the other end, pointless gay scenes that took a lot of effort for me to handle. Don’t expect anything subtle here…

I’m sort of thinking about the US history. It wasn’t very joyous. And then I think about ours. But I’ll return to the US history and I can only say that people were real bastards in the past. I’m not saying that they’re not bastards nowadays, but what happened on the US territory during its colonization is just unparalleled. The land bought by the blood of Native Americans and then subsequently African Americans that the white men have brought in… that’s not exactly something you can brag about nowadays. And a very interesting British director Steve McQueen introduced one such chapter into a story that made me sick throughout the entirety of the movie. I almost didn’t make it till the ending. And I believe I can take a whole deal when it comes to movies now. But I guess I can’t, I haven’t seen a movie this heavy in a long time. Some of the scenes reeked of absolute despair, loss and sadness from each day spent on a cotton field. But the director filmed it really well. I won’t ever get some of the scenes from my mind. And not only because there were insane things happening, but also because the director has purposely filmed them to be lengthy, sometimes even silent. The ending itself is all-telling. And those actors? I don’t need to take a long time to talk about them. They all left such an impression on me. Not only the main African American ones, but also those portraying secondary characters, who had a whole array of famous names.

The Canadians have never been too good with art. The music isn’t any good, except for a few exceptions. The movies aren’t any good, except for a few exceptions. And this movie certainly isn’t that exception. It was a drama that copied whatever it could and did it poorly.

While watching this movie, I remembered a plethora of stories of young, promising French guys, who, with joy, spraypaint on our historic buildings in Prague, and then the police have to scrape them off the roads in the middle of the St. Wenceslas square or they intentionally shove them so they would fall from the statue of St. Wenceslas.

A bunch of girls in an unintersting French town are bored. They have been bored for a long time, so one ‘intelligent’ 16-year-old girl gets the idea that it might be quite fun if she got pregnant. The girls’ lack of zest for living was pretty obvious and I can easily imagine that this very thing is the problem with today’s young people, who do not know how to entertain themselves, so they look for entertainment in nonsense. The film’s premise will attract your attention, but at the same time you cannot expect this to be a five-star gem of a movie. There are too many scenes portraying the endless moments of boredom of the current French generation, who do not know how to value life.

The Italians once again came with a brilliant subject matter. In my opinion, they have a talent for it. I watch a dozen of mediocre Italian movies (often with a lot shouting on top of it), and then they hit me with something I can’t get out of my head even if I hit a wall with it. And there’s nothing wrong with the fact that they’re exploiting time travel here. This is a film about family tradition, about some sort of family spirituality, which is what I liked so much about it. Plus I immediately noticed the Slavia Prague soccer scarf in the living room, belonging to the father with Buffon’s hairstyle, which made me feel even more enthusiastic about the film. Plus, the casting of actresses is also very fortunate – Vittoria Puccini’s acting performance was brilliant and Benedetta Porcaroli was also not bad given her youth. 18 Presents is a sensitive family film that won’t make you cry, but in the end it you will feel so incredibly strange that you will not want to forget it.