DaViD´82

A prime example of the old fashioned family adventure movie; they don’t make them like this anymore. And also a new adaptation of Belle and Sebastian that doesn’t lose points for deviating from the original and shifting setting to the time of German occupation. At least for most of the time, because it’s mainly still about them two. Unfortunately the final “winter" quarter went a different way than it should have done and the so far very convincingly incorporated wartime milieu suddenly starts looking very farfetched, in a way that doesn’t fit the established style of a big mountain friendship “that endures".

Jack Bauer’s comeback would make greater sense if only the authors learned from the mistakes in the “original" series. But they said a firm NO and so everything stays as it always was. Instead of concentrating on Jack, we again keep on wasting time with white collars at their computers again spouting would-be technical claptrap about nothing that we heard in the past series about a hundred times, again there is some political milieu and... And simply everything. It doesn’t seem that the authors have anything more to say on top of what had been said in the past and so they recycle what worked the best in the best seasons. But it must be said that they have a great sales pitch and so it soon picks up an incredible tempo. It’s just a shame that the tempo doesn’t endure and in the final quarter it runs out of breath which irks the more if you already know how it works in a 24 and so it’s obvious who and how is going to betray/die and so on. The very end wouldn’t be that bad if the whole series didn’t find itself again at the point where it had already been (not only) once before. We simply need to come to terms with the fact that it’s “just" the ninth series with all the good and the bad from the previous eight seasons. Nothing more and nothing less.

Where is the happy medium between scientific ethics, personal responsibility toward yourself, truth and politics? A drama about the investigation of one of the greatest tragedies of the space program at the very end of the Cold War by an independent committee where each member has its own more or less hidden agenda. It clings to reality and also meets the criteria for a good conspiration thriller; behind-the-scenes politics, secretly delivered notes, lost notes, uncooperative management... It’s all here. And although this is primarily about the investigation of the causes of the accident, it doesn’t nearly stop there.

A baby switch from a distinguished Japanese perspective. Two families with a different social status standing before a Sophie’s Choice of the modern world. Giving up their assumed son for their real six-year-old son brought up in completely different (not just) social conditions? Can they love him as much? Acted, written and filmed sensitively, touchingly, without Koreeda using an instant of blackmail, but quite the opposite, remaining nicely down-to-earth. The only thing is, I would have perhaps welcomed greater focus on the other family; although I understand the author’s decision to view things mainly from Ryota’s perspective, and so this isn’t a mistake in this case but clear (and functional) intention, but still it’s a shame.

Despite all the sun, this is a heavy crime movie on the edge of noire and the modern Scandinavian school which capitalizes (and slightly trips up) on holding up a mirror to the consequences and scourges of apartheid. It “capitalizes" in the sense that thanks to this, this isn’t just another bleak movie “about some horrors". It “trips up" in the sense that in the last third, the creators try too hard to make it “overlap" much more than the classic limits of the genre can take. It wouldn’t be a problem in City of God, Elite Squad or Metro Manila, however they aren’t primarily dark crime movies clinging tightly to all of the (un)written rules of the genre. P.S.: Who would have guessed that the role of the vagabond macho wreck of a cop would fit Bloom so snugly?

A great portrayal of the melancholy of the summer rains and the overall "in the rain" atmosphere handled brilliantly and without exaggeration. Of course, what's the point when the carefully built atmosphere of this feel-good film becomes an annoying festival of sentimental whining during the final quarter of an hour.

Superb and chilling. Perhaps the only thing that is disappointing is that everyone is portrayed the same and that they are pushing so hard on the tear-jerker; the story is emotional enough in itself not to leave even a complete football ignoramus emotionally scarred.

Just five minutes of shared custody of this bratty little monster who would drive Batman to wring his neck, never mind his “no weapons, no dead" policy. Twice over. No wonder his mother refused to recognize him at the end. But regardless of his dear son it’s “sort of weird". Dozens of dead, gallons of blood, poked out eyes, kids crucified... It’s simply a little too uncompromising for the world of DC (and other) comic book movies, but at the same time slap dash and cheaply extolling American values. But thanks to solid and frequent action, there’s no time to get bored. At least I can say that.

In God We Trust. A heavy social drama lightly crossed with a bleak crime storyline; it’s a combination that isn’t easy to handle. However, Ellis scores with the unusually mesmerizing to almost hypnotic genius loci and by gaining your sympathy for the characters in unrelenting (and candid) tour of the quagmire that is the dark side of Manila, doing the same for the local tourist industry as Elite Squad or City of God did for Rio de Janeiro. It’s been a long time since I felt such sincere sympathy as I did here. And thanks to suffered through it (in a good way) with the characters, the ending is powerfully emotional and genuinely moving.

For my taste, this is too talkative for this type of movie, but when Redford doesn’t happen to be promenading through the wilderness in his stripy red bath robe or if the filmmakers aren’t throwing stuffed wolves at him (in the light of which, even Lugosi’s battle with the octopus looks real), all we are left with is a melancholy trappers (non)western about the impossibility of escaping one’s fate. The nice thing is that Pollack didn’t let himself be tempted by the audience-pleasing, legend-inspiring part of Johnson’s life and so the part about revenge takes up barely the final half hour and the ninety minutes before that focuses purely on his escape from civilization in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in all types of foul weather. And it’s all the better for being so unusual.