Lima

Poster tagline: BROOKLYN CHUMPS BECOME ISLAND MONKEYS IN A JUNGLE FULL OF LAFFS! A HORROR FILM THAT WILL STIFFEN YOU WITH LAUGHTER!!! The star of horror icon Bela Lugosi was completely extinguished after the war, and he took every acting opportunity he could to make a living and keep his name from fading into the dust. This was supposed to be a return to the elite, but it ended up being an obscure affair that many critics overseas consider the worst Hollywood comedy of all time. As for the stupid script, it was still bearable, as was the directorial approach of Beaudin, who took things very seriously (he never repeated a scene), but the performance of stand-up comedian Sammy Petrillo almost caused me physical pain (Kevin Hart is a similarly awkward element nowadays), so it was hard to get through the 70 minutes. Otherwise, the rest is in keeping with the period: cute sets, terrible effects and a gorilla costume that must have been hilarious even at the time of its creation. Lugosi keeps throwing those shifty looks, having a go at a young girl like he did when he was younger, but it's obvious that he's probably tired of it. But you have to pay the rent somehow, right? In summary, I've seen a lot of similar crap from that period, but I'll repeat myself – Sammy Petrillo is evil in the making, and like Octavianus, I'd like to see some long martyrdom as satisfaction for the culture shock I'll be recovering from for a long time :o)

Poster tagline: CRAWLING HORROR!!! RISING FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL TO KILL AND CONQUER!!! An utterly unlikeable film. What I love about the sci-fi movies of the Golden Age, even if some of them are silly, is the charming naivety with which they were made, including the cute sets, the costumes, the make-up, etc. But in this case, Corman's calculating approach offers no such thing – "We've got one camera, two cheap costumes and a swamp, let's put something together in a few days!" Cheapness oozes from every frame of the film (as one contemporary review wittily noted - ".... the budget wouldn't cover the catering costs of another normal film..."), the lighting is non-existent, so most of the scenes set at night are drowned in darkness, the exteriors of the Pasadena Arboretum are drab, ugly, repulsive, and visually uninteresting, and the giant leeches are only occasionally and briefly (one might want to say "fortunately") glimpsed. I give one star for the few shots from the cave with the prisoners, which at least remotely resemble a horror atmosphere, otherwise avoid this miserable hour.

Poster tagline: SEE!!! A 6 FT. ASTRONAUT SHRINK TO 6 INCHES BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!!! MOON MAIDENS!!! THE ATTACK OF THE FIRE PEOPLE!!! Surprisingly, the poster doesn't lie (as was customary with the advertising of the sci-fi films of the Golden Age), you will see everything that it promises, but in such a lacklustre way that it hurts. The pace s pretty grim and lazily dragging, thanks to a plethora of banal dialogue that deals with even more banal issues. There is a kind of alien race of people living on an asteroid that they have made into a flying spacecraft that they control by waving their hands on glass pots (I can't think of a better analogy), and with the help of a "gravity curtain" they fight against "solarites", i.e. monsters flying on fiery rocks and whipping plasma rays, and whatever they grow among these rocks for their livelihood, I haven't noticed. For three quarters of the film, the actors run confusedly among the backdrops of rocks, the main character – an Earthling and pilot – has his shirt permanently unbuttoned with his hairy chest sticking out, and he’s constantly deciding which of the alien women he prefers for his amorous escapades. But the film does have its bright moments – the occasional cute visual effect, like the first encounter between the big Earthman in a spacesuit (before he takes in a breath of atmosphere and shrinks) and the alien midgets, the fight with the fire monster (a funny two-metre tall monster in a costume with the body of – believe it or not – Richard Kiel, later the villain Jaws from the Bond films), and that's it. The director, on the other hand, doesn't handle the mashing up of individual scenes, so that the actors – every last one of them – sometimes stare directly into the camera without anything being resolved. But after two hundred or so watched sci-fi pieces of the Golden Age, I'm so jaded that I can’t be offended by this and I won't trash it.

Yes, Jack Arnold running at half throttle, so the uninitiated viewer might get the impression that this is not worthy of his reputation as a sci-fi great. But trashing his farewell to the genre wouldn’t be fair. Even though the production values of are not great by his standards (some exterior shots and a few sandy – albeit pretty – sets, repeated over and over again), the effort to convey something to the audience more than compensates for that. Arnold was a Democrat in body and soul, and this was a sort of a middle finger to the hawks (mainly Republicans) who, full of panic about the upcoming Soviet Sputnik launch, were eager to build something similar to this film’s atomic weapon The Thunderer, which would shoot down similar satellites. And Arnold clearly says, "No-no, boys, it wouldn't work that way." Projecting "the good of humanity" onto the characters of young children was a bit shallow, but on the other hand, the creators of the much-celebrated Village of the Damned two years later could see what it looks like when children play individuals in trance, some kind of mediums controlled by mental energy (or whatever that lump of slime hidden in the cave on the beach was actually transmitting). The pathetic ending with numerous distant viewpoints (as if cut out of a buddy movie) was over the top, but really just corresponded with what Arnold was trying to do.

Why? Because Die Antwoord, that’s why. Throw in a bit of wacky comedy, a bit of fatalistic sci-fi drama, add a dash of Deus Ex Machina and a few ideas from The Matrix on top, season it with a pinch of clichés, stir it up and you have a fun, inconsistent mashup of genres that one moment is laugh-out-loud hilarious and the next is naturalistically ripping your body in half. Blomkamp is a misunderstood filmmaker doing things his own way, the antithesis of the California dream factory of today. And that’s good. And one thing is certain: Die Antwoord are aliens whose cute non-acting is amusing. Although I believe those two didn't have to play much, they're fucked up in real life añready :o)

Visually and musically captivating it’s captivating, with the image is in perfect symbiosis with Smetana's (and other composers') music. At the same time, I sense a strong authorial imprint, an effort to make it not just another dry documentary with an impassive commentary. So I welcomed all those refreshing touches, such as the short mini-movies with Jitka Molavcova pulling period props in a cart somewhere on a dirt road, which interestingly introduced individual periods of Smetana's life. The performances of Molavcova, as well as the pleasant accompanying voice of her and Ladislav Mrkvička, give this documentary an interesting touch.

The film may push the despot-pupil relationship a little too much, but there’s no better demonstration in recent years that talent alone is not enough; that talent, not nourished by daily grind, immeasurable diligence, focus and a desire for maximalism, regardless of the obstacles, is actually useless. Because as J.K. Simmons says “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job’.” Fuck "good job", geniuses must want more. The last time I experienced similar feelings was with the 1961 film The Hustler, with Paul Newman, which says the same thing about talent, though in a completely different industry. The message of this film is more or less clear and it doesn't matter if it is about drummers, violinists, billiard players or tennis players, its insight about Talent is universal.

I know of better films about the plight of acting while paying homage to the work of the theatre. This is nothing but an attempt at an artsy film of the European kind, but by an established Hollywood filmmaker, where the supposedly uninterrupted narrative (achieved, of course, by flawless digital effects) is only a mannerism, like Edward Norton's repeatedly discussed hardened penis. It didn't touch me, not at all, neither mentally nor emotionally. The only exception is the scene of the emotionally strained conversation with a theatre critic about the nature of professional criticism and then Birdman's words about the vapid taste of the average dimwitted viewer, which I would chisel in stone. Of course, I would wish the Oscar to the phenomenal Michael Keaton with all my heart, if only because he is such a likeable guy and his life's fate is a bit like Riggan's.

It is rare to see such dirty, unkempt action in an A-budget film, where in the heat of battle, opponents are beaten into a freshly stitched wound and eliminated 95% of the time in the surest way, i.e. by headshot, where cars don't explode upon impact and women fight like women (i.e. not through strength, but by subterfuge), so you don't see them punch and kick hard, which they wouldn't be able to do given their physiognomy, as the vast majority of films in Hollywood today do in terms of gender pseudo-balance. What's more, there's a humorous twist on action movie clichés – the assassins have their own hotel with its own rules, and the unquestionable reason for the carnage is a dead dog. I can understand that, if someone touched my hamster, even John Wick with his arsenal would be in trouble.

Poor Peter Jackson, if this film had come out 10 or 13 years ago, everyone would have been gushing over an unparalleled foray into the fantasy genre, but today's audiences are already spoiled by the cinematic attractions of recent years (and rightly so) and CGI effects, however sophisticated, can no longer impress anyone. But I can still feel that playful Peter in there, the 14 year-old kid who would get cyclops moving and trow a spear with photo-montage. I can still see the overgrown kid in who likes to show off, like in his movie beginnings. And I like that. Moreover, as with the Ring Trilogy, the visuals were handled by Tolkien's illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee, so I have nothing to complain about in that respect either. The Hobbit doesn't match the previous trilogy emotionally, but nobody could have expected that with the source material, which is an easygoing fairytale that doesn't solve anything, and I appreciate all the more that Jackson did manage to squeeze some of those fateful emotions into it. Still, unlike the previous two parts, I’m not giving it 5 stars. While the Hobbit's quest was entertaining and engaging thanks to the frequent changes of scenery and encounters with creatures of all sorts, here we basically don't move from where we are, there is more empty filler than necessary and you can also see how the narrative has been brutally chopped up. This policy of the studios (release a shorter cut in cinemas and a half-hour longer one on Blu-ray and make more money out of it) really annoys me. However, when I sum it up and count the pros and cons, I can safely say that although the Hobbit trilogy is not equal to the Ring trilogy in my eyes, it’s still a few thousand Smaug’s Tails ahead of the rest of the fantasy competition.