3DD!3

This is certainly the weakest episode in the Mad Max series. It lacks the amazing car chases and the story is rather fragmentary. But still, the beginning when Max arrives in Bartertown is pretty well done and the final action sequence with the train is also quite impressive. And at the end, we get to take a look at Sydney. Slightly above mediocre.

In 1994, Roland Emmerich struck gold when he let a military unit walk through a portal of rippling water into a distant galaxy to a desert planet ruled by the Sun god, Ra. But Ra wasn’t a god, but an alien who subjugated the people into worshipping him as a god. The scouts, led by Col. O'Neill, stood on the side of the subjugated people and fought against the false god. Three years later, following on the success of the movie, a TV series was created that developed on the huge potential of the idea of traveling through time using a stargate, celebrating even greater success than the original movie. But back to the movie. The story is truly good and the special effects excellent for the time. The acting performances are nothing earth-shattering, but they suffice, Kurt Russel still in form and James Spade as Daniel Jackson is pleasantly madcap, but at the same time clever and mainly he’s a “good guy" :-). It took a long time to decide how many stars to give. Originally I put **** and I was considering leaving it at that, but I would be lying to myself, so *****

A classic. A gang of gunslingers who arrive in a small village to protect the peasants there. One of the few westerns that I really like. Great actors, flawless music and an atmosphere that gets right under your skin. A really well-made remake of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai that perhaps became even better-known than the original.

An excellent short from Pixar that I first had the good luck to see before Monsters, Inc. Super animation as always, marvelous music and disarming birds with the power to make even the biggest grump in the movie theater laugh. Excellent. Keep up the good work, boys. 100%

Easygoing and unpretentious Sunday afternoon fun for the whole family. Michael Jordan plays Michael Jordan really well and you can tell that the role was tailor made for him. :-)

The novella “Apt Pupil" from the compendium “Different Seasons" (which also contains “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption") describes the story of a twisted high school kid interested in the things that went on in Nazi torture rooms during the Second World War. It’s his greatest hobby. One day he comes across Kurt Dussander, who used to be head of a concentration camp in Patin. The kid starts to blackmail him and demands that Kurt tells him stories of those days, in exchange for his silence. Stories of torture and killing Jewish prisoners... It’s very clear that Bryan Singer has great respect for Stephen King. He faithfully transferred the atmosphere from the book to the movie and adapted the story pretty damn well. I was little disappointed with the ending which is more hinted at and more “happy-ending" like, while in King’s version it is tougher and overall comes across better and more realistic. If I hadn’t read the book before seeing the movie, I would have been happier with it. But I was pleased to see Jan Tříska who gave an excellent performance in his small role and also David Schwimmer in a rather unusual role of Ed French aka Rubber Ed. :)

An unusual and fascinating story. Perfectly filmed and really gets your brain working. In fact, it’s the first movie from Kubrick I’ve ever seen and I’m pleasantly surprised. Really good. It poses questions that I had never thought about and does so masterfully. An amazing work.

An excellent adventure drama about a journey from the wilderness back to civilization. Anthony Hopkins as always acts perfectly and Baldwin is also extremely good. The scenes with the bear are filmed superbly and are sufficiently suspenseful. The music from Jerry Goldsmith, with beautiful motifs is also amazing. And the wonderful landscape. 70%

A wonderful movie. Fearless certainly has its flaws, but the life story of Huo Yuanjia is portrayed here in the beautiful old Chinese cinema style that I was raised on and that I love reliving. Unlike Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero, it shows the life of a real person from the real world - no jumping around in the trees or flying about. Plus, the story is underpinned with names such as Yuen Woo-Ping, Ronny Yu and last but not least, Jet Li, who was heard saying that Fearless would be his last purely Chinese, “Wushu" movie. That’s awful news, but I still hope that he will let himself be talked into making another someday.

The first Linkin Park DVD to come out and I give it almost full marks. It is a complete anthology of all music videos to the singles from the album “Hybrid Theory" + a bonus video to the song “Points of Authority". The DVD also contains chapters describing various periods, such as when they were making their debut album, its subsequent promotion, album tour and also their plans to the future. In short excerpts from the tour you can see that Linkin Park is a great group of guys and some of their antics will make you laugh (the collapsing table, throwing wet toilet roll onto a bus without a roof in London etc.). This DVD worked really well, it’s worth having at home (if you like this band at least a little).