POMO

Honeymoon is a tense drama about guilt, responsibility and shadows of the past that will catch up with you. Psychologically precise, with only one or two editing lapses (read: WTF moments), it constantly leaves the audience in doubt as to where the truth is and who is lying, who the villain is and who the victim is. There is also welcome comic relief in the character of the sister’s husband, who prefers to sleep on the toilet when he’s drunk.

Packed with dark humor, Intimate Parts is a movie that knows sex is always an attractive topic and provides insight into the intimate privacy of a group of people in dysfunctional relationships or no relationships at all. The censorship commission is headed by a lonely lady with a malfunctioning vibrator, and the most beautiful and romantic protagonist is pregnant by a guy who imagines a man when he’s in bed with her. The film is a sensitive and, thanks to the wide-angle camera, a cinematic, non-television scratch of the itch of your psychological voyeurism.

If there were more skyscrapers in Manhattan, this film would’ve taken three hours. Man of Steel is megalomaniacal, overwhelming movie that arouses wonder and enthusiasm while masking all of its flaws. It is a poetic and epic, sometimes intensely sensitive, sometimes fetishistically destructive colossus that undermines itself when it kills the fragile realistic feeling of a fatal clash of the two worlds it has managed to build up so far with an over-digitized skyscraper climax. But how can you not like a movie in which the father of the main character is Russell Crowe and his stepfather is Kevin Costner? Add in the likable Henry Cavill and powerful villains headed by Michael Shannon who feel strongly superior towards the human race, their perfect costumes, H.R. Giger’s vagina-like spaceship interiors, and the explosive music by Hans Zimmer, after which you will feel like you’ve drunk five cans of Red Bull in quick succession. Personally, I was also delighted with the elaborate Krypton mythology, and the disappointment over the improperly cast Lois Lane (Amy Adams) was mitigated by newcomer Antje Traue in a sexy helmet.

Adam Sandler to Eric Bana: “If I looked like you, I’d be at home all day fucking myself.” This is one of the few lines in this sad comedy that will make you laugh out loud. But you will enjoy your time with the characters and that’s what it’s all about. About relationships, the need to have someone close, the importance of past love and the fact that being rich and famous doesn’t mean not being lonely. On the contrary, the opposite is true. Judd Apatow perfectly escalates most of the dialogue scenes, reveals life behind the Hollywood glamor and lets the actors shine “internally”. But the two-and-a-halfhour runtime is really too much for the given genre.

Bloodlines is a demented but still relatively entertaining B-slasher in which the most annoying character is played by Doug “Pinhead” Bradley from Hellraiser. The murders are done in an “ingenious” manner (à la Saw), which will certainly please the uncritical fans of the genre, and they are once again disgustingly sadistic (which will please them even more). But what brings the series down to garbage level is the behavior of the victims and the absolute invincibleness of the three redneck cannibals, who seem to be able to take on the US military with just a shovel, a pitchfork and a retarded chuckle. It’s more of self-parody than horror. I feel a little guilty about adding the second star, but what can you do; it has an indisputable guilty-pleasure potential.

In the old days, after watching Tobe Hooper’s original, I longed for it to last another hour and a half. I wanted to keep riding that wave of horror and never leave. Texas Chainsaw 3D follows the original in that spirit... but it completely changed the concept of both the classics and the Michael Bay-produced remakes, which delighted the contemporary young viewer with ultra-brutality and a modern grim atmosphere. It is the least bloody of the mentioned films and not at all grim. Leatherface wears a purple sweater and the conflict of local villagers with the remains of the Saw family interferes with the plot in a way that the audience doesn’t care about. The scene on the carousel surprised and delighted me, and Alexandra Daddario is the most interesting actress to appear in a slasher flick in a long while, but the rest is a scriptwriting and directorial mistake with everything in it wrong in the context of the horror legend.

Young Indiana Jones meets Evil Dead, without a single original director’s touch and with ridiculous visual effects. A truly low-grade B-movie you neither need nor want to see.

The last third of Switch is overly contrived. The wrongfully accused on the lam and the main cop are not as stellar and charismatic as we’re used to from similar French genre films. Because of this, and for some less-than-believable situations, the film cannot equal the best American thrillers. But as a way to kill some time, it’ll keep you entertained. It maintains the mystery surrounding the main villain long enough and at least one scene will stick in your memory (the chase in the mansion neighborhood).

In the first quarter, Maniac looks like a disgusting, self-serving gore fest, repelling the audience, who then finds it hard to stay interested in it. But it’s helped by the character of a photographer played by Nora Arnezeder, who brings normality and humanity to all the psychedelic disgust. Thanks to her, the darkness and purity are balanced, and by learning the causes of Elijah Wood’s murderous madness, the repulsive slasher movie becomes a thrilling drama. Compared to the trashy 1980s original, it’s a commendable step towards A-rated filmmaking, while maintaining the original’s explicit gore and brutality. It’s original thanks to the ripper’s POV and especially the crazy (but fantastic!) electronic soundtrack. A bizarre affair about which we can be glad it turned out the way it did.

Part III is a great ending of the series, though it lacks a more interesting climax. However, the bonus in the end credits almost completely makes up for it. Great cadence and originality of the jokes. Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong dominate the film, as Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms are only their sidekicks. John Goodman is a breath of fresh air. Though I found the first instalment strange, while watching the second part I began to understand the essence of “WolfPack humor”, and the third Hangover made me roll on the floor with laughter.