Othello

Jesus Christ. Well I honestly expected it to be more of a romp, but there were some great jokes. Actually, I wasn't so much amused by Ben Stiller as I was by Owen Wilson's perfect creation. I might have had a little more fun if I had known that Milla Jovovich played Katinka (and I kept wondering if she was really hot or horrible) and Will Ferrell played Mugatu. I found the humor of the film more or less quite similar to Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and the latter was crammed with jokes, about a third of which I laughed at, but I laughed hard, and that’s the main thing.

Between four and five stars. Far funnier and more playful than number one. I can't remember a time in a long time when I roared with laughter along with the whole cinema so hard that I had to wipe tears from my eyes, like when the main characters escape from the cannibals. The film has a slower pace in the beginning and has some passages that had me falling asleep (zero hours of sleep a night will have its share of that), but when the filmmakers put their minds to it, it's worth it. Some scenes are so rewarding that it goes to absurd lengths. Case in point, as the three main characters all fence against each other over the chest mentioned in the title, THEN Keira Knightley throws rocks at them, THEN behind her back two pirates are just now stealthily carrying the chest to the ship, THEN all the characters are still fighting over the key to the chest, and THEN some fishermen come out of the sea with the same goal. I'm not counting the continuation of the scene, where ON TOP OF THAT they add a mill wheel. For my part, I like that kind of bombastic playfulness, combined with Johnny Depp tickling my diaphragm again (maybe even more than in the first one), I'd really feel sorry about that four.

I mean, a pretty massive disappointment. There's absolutely no scary atmosphere, the acting ensemble is mediocre to the point of being painful, and on top of that Koepp rips off a lot of stuff like the biggest B-movie ever. I’m not only taking into account the unoriginal script, or for example the jerky movement of the (not to mention absolutely useless) girl's ghost in one scene, which we could have seen in Gothika or The Grudge (ugh, and there it was very... unpleasantly handled), but when he uses the eight-hundred-year-old jump scare with the closing mirror, you can’t keep from rolling your eyes. It's not a bad film on the whole, maybe the two scenes of hypnosis or the hero's dream about the neighbors were very evocative, but otherwise not really much. More like 2 and a half stars. PS: I saw Secret Window about a year ago, and only now I feel disappointment at how the director is ripping himself off in it... ah well :-(

A strangely raw and unusually gritty western. The slow pacing and unreal jumble of unappealing characters, led by Paul Newman, whose most frequent catchphrases are all sorts of equivalents to the phrase "I don't care" and who would happily let an innocent (arguably) lady dry to death in the sun, drag us through the plot, and it's up to the viewer to swallow it down altogether. I endured it. And I didn't regret it.

A relatively crushing disappointment. After the film, when I listened to the DVD interview with Cecile De France and listened to her describe the amazing script, which is like a great novel, and how it immediately grabber her, I wondered what the poor girl was on. I would have written something similar after a three-day bender just before bedtime with my own blood and half a gram of coke in my snout. I mean, you just don't see anything that stupid. I'm not just counting the lameness of removing a head with a wardrobe (the guy who had that happen to him must have had leprosy), or the heroine's conversation with the police, which had me slapping my forehead, but I'm mostly referring to the "shocking" ending. I haven't seen something so horribly stupid, unjustified, and pointless in a long time. Such depravity unfortunately obscures the film's pluses, such as the good acting, excellent murders, and the multigore final scene on the road. Such a pity...

It's probably due to age, but the sixties and seventies don't really speak to me and I'll probably never fully appreciate their beauty. Funès is as always wonderful, but this is not one of his best works. The kinds got on my nerves terribly, leaving me with virtually nothing to do but root for the dads. Among other issues, I noticed a lot of reflections of the cameraman in the glass and the shadows, extras looking at the camera shyly to see if the shot was still going, etc.

Pretty much a standard thriller in all respects, with virtually nothing to distinguish it. The script is quite interesting and full of various twists and turns, and the acting is quite good, though at two points Viggo didn't do it for me. The ending was horribly fast, rushed, and felt like the screenwriter had a heart attack while writing it and someone quickly finished it for him. Well, all in all, 3.5 stars.

So to be clear, X-Men is a pretty normal Hollywood slop, kept afloat only by some interesting special effects (although the ratio of interesting to terrible is about 1:1) and some good fights. What's left is a bland and flavorless product that typically depicts the ideals of a "factory for dreams". But not mine.

Frank Darabont is a common emotional blackmailer. To his credit, though, he certainly knows how to make the viewer use their handkerchiefs. I have to admit that during some scenes even a cynic like me blinked with a little more frequency than usual and that alone deserves recognition. Admittedly, here he mostly attacked my fixation on little rodents, and with this and more he succeeded in keeping me from being able to tear my eyes from the screen for the entire 188 minutes. However, the film does have a few, though perhaps not so pronounced, weaknesses. First of all, one can't help but compare it to The Shawshank Redemption (also by Darabont), compared to which it stands out for the lack of an absolutely clear separation between the black and white sides. The young guard, Percy, has absolutely no positive side and is simply a rotten swine from start to finish until it starts to feel unrealistic. On the other hand, the characters of Tom Hanks, his friends, or John Coffey (like coffee, only spelled differently) are paper-positive heroes from start to finish, good to watch and root for, but they’re missing a little dimension. But whatever, screw it. What movie holds its viewer's complete attention and rushes by like water with a running time longer than three hours? Definitely a timeless work.

The film has excellent gore and really makes you feel the pain. That's the end of the plus side, and all we have is a bunch of unsympathetic meat to the slaughter, which is perversely unbelievably moronic in every way and also can't even act. The first installment gets full marks for its quality contribution to the genre despite a ridiculous budget. The next installments will be nothing but calculating, reputation-raping, but the truth is that for all their filth I will watch them. Oh, and the sped-up editing sequence sux.