3DD!3

I think that people today won’t get this movie. It’s intended to be deep, but it’s terribly superficial. Which results in tense friction between both surfaces. The Counselor demonstrates just how Hollywood Scott’s style is. McCarthy wrote an incredible screenplay that breaks all the rules, unfortunately he didn’t make sure that the director applied the necessary parable to the movie. For something like that, I think someone else would be more suitable, Nicolas Winding Refn seems to me to the best choice. Personally, I like Scott’s style, so I was able to get over this point. The cast that he put together is admirable, but it maybe goes against the type proportions of the actors themselves. Fassbender is unusually nice, the evil that they talk about consists of just greed and snobbery. Pitt is fine, although a bit forced in places. Reiner is completely wrong for Bardem, he doesn’t play the role badly, but he’s simply the wrong type. Penny Cruz should be younger and more crazily in love, but she doesn’t make much of an appearance. And then there’s Cameron Diaz as Malkina. A monstrous, calculating bitch and probably the second most important character. McCarthy has probably never written a stronger female part. And Diaz took it on with flying colors. She’s good at swines, but Angelina would have suited better. And now we come to the biggest problem, which is the age rating. The Counselor hovers cleverly along the edge of the 15 rating, but this makes all the murder and sexual tension too sterile. The scene with the Ferrari is special and well delivered, but it doesn’t have the necessary shock effect that the characters talk about. Any torture in this movie is just talked about. It could be due to the artistic intention, but this takes away the credibility, the chilling edge of the picture. What’s the point of polished dialogs about death and doom if we see almost none of it? The Counselor isn’t a bad movie, it’s just too strange to like.

Today Paul Walker zoomed off into eternity in his red Porsche and the news has hit me harder than I would have expected. A real nice guy who was also capable of swearing and smashing anybody’s face in. I’m going to miss him, particularly in F&F. I was originally planning on watching the Pawn Shop Chronicles today, but because he plays a quirky junkie in it, it wouldn’t really be the right choice. Here he plays a new dad whose wife died during childbirth. The baby is put into an incubator and the hospital is hit by Hurricane Katrina. The generator breaks down and the battery is junk that requires charging every three minutes. Just one of those days. Three minutes to get rescued, three minutes to get some sleep, to find food... and time is running out. An unobtrusive movie with an excellent idea that could definitely have been a little better. It’s an enjoyable to watch, hopes, fear and even jokes. Never a dull moment. The ending could have been driven to greater extremes, but good. So long, Paul, I’m sure we’ll see each other again a few more times. You aren’t playing fair, Mr. Ventilator.

Today the concept of flying off somewhere the space seems a bit silly. But the Alien’s secret which unravels at the end of the movie left me completely gob-smacked. That takes the movie onto a completely other level. Thanks to Goldsmith’s music, even the long, sweeping shots of the spaceship are bearable.

Maybe it’s because meanwhile I’ve read the comic book original, but the sequel is much weaker than part one. For one thing, Jeff Wadlow comes nowhere near Vaughn. His directing is erratic and lacks invention. The story diverges from the comic book in the most interesting passages, while it sticks quite faithfully to the less interesting parts. Chloë Moretz is fine, unfortunately she’s grown a little too old and I simply can’t see the well-behaved, sweet little girl in her anymore. Most of the time the poor girl is hanging around in High School Musical mode and not only is it boring, it doesn’t lead anywhere. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is annoying, completely inappropriate as a bad guy and even Iain Glen who appeared on screen only for about a minute easily outplayed him. And the best characters - Carrey and Leguizamo are given too little space. The action is decent, but in places more distasteful than plain bloody entertainment. The cuts between dramatic and entertaining scenes are about as smooth as a slap in the face. Why am I even giving it 3 stars?

It’s fine to see Hanks acting again, even though in the second half he is more like an extra. Although this nerve-racking voyage loses tension a little in the slower, middle section, this is a minor flaw on an otherwise thrilling depiction of past events. This time Greengrass makes excellent use of the camera - shaky Somali vs. calm Yankee-Irish style. Wonderfully heated confrontations, the Somalis are great to a man and the movie is just dripping with authenticity. The finale where the US Navy arrive is a heavy-caliber military display (even my better half acknowledged the majestic beauty of the warships). Greengrass has certainly made more charged and even better movies, but it didn’t receive that stamp of humanity until Hanks got involved. If it weren’t for United 93, I would give it full marks.

Machete is back and making fun of old Bond movies. The motivation of the main protagonist is basically the same as in the first movie, the same goes for the locations. Even Danny Trejo is the same. Rodriguez follows loosely on the first movie and prepares the ground for the grand finale that we see at the end. The array of stars is colorful, but the one that stands out the most is the schizo dictator Demián Bichir who is responsible for most of the twists in the movie. Mel Gibson rather strangely underplays his role of the megalomaniac bad guy and Carlos Estevez as President Rathcock goes down in history as one of the most capable presidents of the silver screen. The action keeps on coming, even though in places it’s a bit repetitive, but mainly it has the unmistakable atmosphere of total mayhem. Bring on the part three!

Pilot: I mainly have positive feelings about this. A dream come true for Asimov robot book fans. AH bases it on “The Caves of Steel", regurgitating it in his own way. Then he adds a bit of Blade Runner, then some Judge Dredd, then a bit of Smith’s I, Robot and we have a lovely cocktail for TV to thrill the sci-fi lover’s heart. With any luck it will maintain the quality of the first episode and not be afraid to go further than the competition. This team certainly has it in it.

A tense, heavy drama and also a perfect detective movie about searching for two kidnapped girls. Villeneuve directs with a sure hand, squeezing the maximum out of the actors. The atmosphere is perfect, almost like the Scandinavian detective series that are so popular right now, but it has that American abnormality and disregard in it. Jackman has never acted better, Gyllenhaal is just awesome and even Paul Dano who just plays a swollen, blood-shot eye for the second half of the movie, is excellent. The viewer has no idea till almost the very end, the twists mount up, decisions are ever more desperate and the clock is ticking. If it weren’t for a couple of places where the movie starts running on the spot the fill time, I would give full marks.

Taylor doesn’t manage to balance the dramatic and comedy levels and so the viewer goes from the brink of tears to dumb giggling in the course of a minute. I know this because I was sitting next to a zitty nerd and I saw moments of total fascination alternate with obscene whooping. It lacks a sense of gradation because the picture gets to its peak in the middle, the beginning is a little slow and the ending is simply too cursory (after the battle in London). Otherwise, the second Thor is meant to sell the wider Marvel universe, to explain, introduce and amaze, which it does. It has no hesitation in piling on sweeping scenes where nothing less than the fate of that universe is at stake. Between its annihilation and the villain stand a bunch of incompetent scientists, a muscleman with a hammer and a pathological liar/fraudster/mass murderer. The most entertaining of those is the last named. Yes, Loki rules again (literally) and steals the scenes he appears in. Asgard is presented in its full glory at last, as well as others of the nine worlds on that tree or whatever it is. Evil elves are great baddies, with very novel firearms and effective grenades. Fights galore, even if a firmer hand and more ideas would have been great. Poor Natalie ended up with definitely the dumbest character (probably as the antithesis of God) and however much her dress suits her, that is the only upside that can be claimed. The post credits scene is linked strongly to The Collector, especially in the remarks appearing in discussions. Great things are planned and the world of the Guardians of the Galaxy looks really weird and even inviting. I’m sincerely curious. P.S.: The Capo’s cameo is one of his best. God bless Ameri...

A crying shame that the movie poster spills the beans about finale. A pleasant feet-up movie with a needlessly complicated screenplay, slightly above-average. Nothing more, nothing less. I did find myself nodding off at times. P.S.: And I did forget one thing about this, the most important thing in fact: Paula Patton topless.