Othello

The pejorative definition of "festival film" fulfilled to a tee, on the other hand a learning experience for viewers who only get to see films at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival if they don’t have a card with the name of some obscure film blog on it and don't want to stand in a 250-foot line to see the new Ki-duk Kim. Clear in terms of meaning, formally it couldn't be more temperate, the goats don't stare at the camera much and only break the fourth wall once. The ants are also crawling in the right direction and the wind is blowing with accurate intensity. Seeing it again, I'll probably chew my leg off; still, I recognize that it has its place in the world and I'm glad I took a gander at it.

I Origins deftly blends the popular "I fucking love science" idea of good-looking scientists in brightly lit labs writing in marker on windows facing the majesty of the autumnal Brooklyn Bridge with Instagram muckety-mucks, earbuds, NYC apartments, public transportation, and the constant feeling that it's six in the morning. It's probably already clear from this compilation that the science here comes in thirty-ninth place, and we're not really looking at anything higher/lower than a spiritual and rather fatalistic romance made by a man I probably wouldn't have much to talk about with, but would love to watch at work. That whole trendy Eastern philosophical plane is of course inexcusable... but wait... It's a sci-fi after all!

From the perspective of the managers of the maze, it's actually a pretty sad story. Just put yourself in their shoes – you spend considerable funds on your social experiment to map the survival skills of a closed-off group of boys, and they invent epilating cream before, say, flint. Sure, you curse yourself for making them all those bodices with the non-functioning buttons as a dress code, but you still have confidence in yourself that you can get the whole situation back on track. Out of desperation, you add to the group a gay guy with the scariest eyebrows of the decade, then you serve them a curly-haired fatso who would even get bullied at UNICEF, and last but not least, you don't disdain to send in a semi-autistic weirdo whose range of expressions would make a rock cry. In one last desperate spasm, you finally send them a spunky girl. In vain, it must be admitted – you are responsible for the most costly state-subsidized Blue Oyster Bar east of Venus. So you confront the problem head-on and unleash all the props from Wild Wild West on them to clean up your mess, except it all goes wrong and now deal with it. ________ Maze Runner is a pretty awful Frankenstein menstruum that isn't shy about ripping off practically anything that's made any money in the last 15 years, gluing it together with gum arabic, and pretending I'm holding something unique. In fact, despite its "wicked is good" tagline, the film's only uniqueness is a terrifying cowardice, where any sample of the population selected for any action always includes virtually every ethnic subgroup, the suddenly appearing girl has almost no relevance and no one really cares much about her, however it may then raise rather bold theories about how things have worked this far in this all-male society, given that after three years of abstinence, shaved sweaty boys and men pay virtually no attention to her. All inventiveness is basically exhausted on biomechanical monsters, otherwise it's really just the boring hodgepodge of an untalented director with nothing to lean on, despite the whole set being lined with walls.

The second Nymph()maniac romp is such a specific and unique product that I've decided to tolerate even the opinions of the writers of the "boo!" and below average reviews. Before I read the whiny compost of hypocritical declamations, of course. The menacing Director's Cunt is truly essential here, unlike in the first volume, and given its existence the abridged version need not be addressed at all. The uniqueness of the second, three-hour-long Nymph()maniac lies in the unique and almost constant transitions out of the medium, often related to the person of the director, which thus definitively underlines his egomania, but nonetheless opens the gateway to our perception of him through the means he controls (i.e., writing and directing), instead of those means (rhetoric) where he is more at a loss and constantly incurring considerable problems. The film thus comments not only on that famous Cannes Hitlerian empathy, accusations of misogyny, problems with censorship, or the expressive depiction of un-aestheticized nudity and violence. And it does so with a big fuck off in a similarly decently suggestive home-made abortion, subsequently likened to the slaughter of cattle, despite the fact that only a minute ago we could have been showering our love on a breathing aborted fetus. The director's role as a celebrity for senior actors suits Trier, which is why he can afford to deliberately and gleefully rip off scenes from his previous films, almost verbatim, in order to elicit audience reactions that rely on knowledge of the source instead of building the scene on its own merits (a child catching snow). Despite how terribly meta the whole thing is, it's fascinating how the individual sequences work when they're freed from a narrative superstructure for extended periods of time, and for example the whole SM passage with the absolutely bravura Jamie Bell is set in context so seamlessly and yet is so different that it actually underlines the whole idea of Trier's work, where there are no directorial mistakes, only audience ones.

Three quarters of the film is shot like a margarine commercial, it takes seven thousand years, and the whole thing is as predictable as a pedophile in a sandbox. Food fetish (as opposed to foot fetish) is not a genre or a measure of a film's quality. And my Chinese soup agrees with me. PS: It would be great if Hallström would die already.

This movie is so terribly gay that if I were to unexpectedly walk into one of the RVs some night during filming, I believe I'd collide with an Italian Stallion clinging his powerful lips to the shaved nipple of a cute giggling Terry Crews, with Austrian-eyed Arnold rubbing a cigar on Statham's naked buttocks and Kellan Lutz with his pink lips behind the camera shooting the whole thing. The downgraded access to a PG13 rating has, among other things, traded blood for cold man sweat, and thanks to motivational bullshit like a gym coach, we suddenly have not an action movie in front of us, but a classic prepubescent muscle show for young Leo Beráneks. Logically, then, the best action scenes here are the skillful Banderas and Ronda, because they at least pretend to have some choreography. I don't think that the lower level of accessibility automatically reduces the functionality of the action scenes, just that for this action and the forms the filmmakers have chosen for it to it take (knives, machetes, close-range shooting), it doesn't work. Not even the LazyTown-esque special effects help. And as for Stallone and his old-man dragging of pensioner's dilemmas into an action movie, all I can say is "Sly, go to Pelhřimov. They have a crematorium there. Take a good look around. See what you're getting into." Actually, the whole thing reminded me of a pub owner I met recently who, when asked what kind of beer they had, said, "We’ve got Budvar. But I wouldn't have any."

Once my coming-of-age years are broached by the likes of Neveldine & Taylor, you'll be amazed at how the dialogue and even the individual scenes don't have to make sense, how idiotic the supporting characters can be, how ugly and unappealing the protagonist can be, though if nothing but pretty chicks revolve around him, just be happy. Otherwise, Boyhood don’t really have to be approached as a performance for the film to be better, it works on its own, and I can't even imagine the effect it could have on 20-somethings who grew up in suburban Amero. What's most interesting from my perspective on Mason's coming of age is how he is surrounded by weak male characters as a counterpoint to the strong women who are bound to responsibility by purpose, as his mother indirectly essentially blurts out in her last scene. We leave the protagonist at the point where he has his adulthood ahead of him and still doesn't know how to approach it – will he find a family, travel, go to Alaska, finish school and pursue his yearnings for art? Everything in the Boyhood universe would have been more gripping, more coherent, and clearer if the main character had been female, except that it wouldn't have been as good a film.

Wolverine is a moronic B movie that someone shoved a lot of money into. In other words, just like the main character. Contrary to the complaints of many about the lack of Singerian overtones, the satire, and the emotional nitpicking of the first two X-Men movies (pfffffff), I'd like to defend myself by saying that I watch mutant movies for the reason that their protagonists can actually punch a helicopter in the face. Check. Plus, when the imbecilically digital Picard appeared at the end of the film, a completely unique strangled sound came from my throat, the first time I've heard it, and whose motivations and origins I intend to continue to investigate. So I can't complain that the film wasn't at least thought-provoking for me.

Every time Travolta and Jackson slip their guns behind their trench coats in front of me and storm out of a coffee shop, Brad Pitt carves a hook into Hans Landa's forehead, or Jamie Foxx drives away from the flaming remains of a Southern ranch, I am convinced that I have just had, without question, the best Tarantino. So I need to somehow approach this differently. Thus, while Pulp Fiction is the most ideal burst of enthusiastic creativity and the strongest part of the trio script-wise, and Inglourious Basterds is again the furthest along in terms of formal referencing, which is nonetheless still fully part of the story and not mere exhibitionism, Django is the furthest along in terms of a mix of serious themes done in pulp style. Jamie Foxx here revitalizes essentially the entirety of modern African-American history, beginning with the pinched slave, where for a breach of hush money less endowed slaveholders can throw the bag at you to a fashionable dandy, combining appropriately aggressively adopted elements of white oppression, such as dress and expression, with a frustrated animosity caused by cowering under the shackles of white skin and lack of education. Which is an absolutely perfect combo with a director who is convinced that the body has 18-24 liters of blood in it and can raise 100 mega for a film that uses the word nigger instead of conjunctions in sentences and runs 165 minutes.

The promotional advantage of a European art film starring a sexy nun in the main role is definitely always the hope that in the context of provocatively challenging old world mores, we're pretty likely to receive her full frontal. Ida, however, has other aces up its sleeve, notably the bravura composition of practically all the shots, which are often unpleasantly uninformative (for example, several times we don't see the person being spoken to or about, even though they're a meter and a half away from the camera frame) and designed so that their actors fill only a minimal part of the frame. This way of shooting, along with the black and white color scheme, helps to portray communist Poland as the elusive scarred little brother of Mordor, riddled with existentialism, loneliness, and alienation. Despite this, Ida is not heavy art, as it easily could have been, since each of the scenes in the film has a clearly named purpose, and the protagonists' impenetrability is framed by the specific goal they are both pursuing. Everything beyond that is something the viewer can comfortably find for themselves, and the film doesn't push them to do so.