Lima

"I want an Oscar! .... I want my fucking Oscar!" Yes, the cinematography is great, the music is magical (but that's not Bradley Cooper's doing), the aging make-up effects are fantastic. But what good is that when at times I felt like I was at a show where the lead actor is trying so hard he doesn't even realize that the one that was supposed to be second best is overwhelmingly outplaying him. Yes, Carey Mulligan gave Bradley's big boxer of an actor a K.O. after a few minutes, because she, unlike him, came across as authentic, natural and didn't need any great prosthetics to do it. And I tried in vain the whole time to determine what it was actually supposed to be about. For it to be about a genius in the arms of the muses who was also a bit of a dick, it's too vague and indistinct, with characters just shuffling around, coming and going and nothing coming of it. And if it was supposed to be about the magical power of music, then maybe only in the cathedral scene, otherwise the reassurance of why Bernstein was such a great composer didn't really rub off on me the whole time. But maybe that's how Cooper intended it, according to the opening credits, that "a work of art doesn't answer questions: it provokes them", and I'm just wronging him on that. But sorry Bradley, sometimes I'm entitled to a bit of superficial viewer expectation...

All my life I've passed noir films as a slightly inert viewer, but that's just me. But I've always admired Billy Wilder's ability to layer dialogue on top of dialogue, and here I've had a blast again. Too bad about two things, though. Firstly, I would have liked some refreshing visual ideas, in this respect Orson Welles, for example, was unmatched, but here where there's nothing. And then the laboriously invented idea of the murder seemed quite banal and in some places very naive. Barbara Stanwyck, however, was perfectly chosen for the role of the femme fatale. She is seductive, but at the same time, there's something off about her from the first look .... you just see her dark side before she turns out to be a cynical bitch :o)

The 4 stars really aren't out of mercy. Anyone who's even a little bit interested in the filmmaking process knows what a pain in the ass it is, especially in our neck of the woods, where you have to beg for every cent. I won’t even mention that the whole film could have been made into a 5-minute trailer with all the visual effects shots, because I'm glad at least for that. Also for the fact that finally there was a domestic film in the cinemas without Langmajer, young Polívka, Prachař etc., and that it is not one of the usual provincial semi-romantic movies Czech cinemas are full of and that nobody remembers two months later. Here, in the case of Robert Hloz, you can feel a worthy ambition to come up with something that stands out from the current Czech film production that is contentedly rotting away on Voyo and similar channels. And in this case, I have to turn a blind eye to the fact that, if you ignore the basic premise of "resetting", which is the only one that meets the standards of sci-fi, the whole plot and the paths it winds its way through is rather on the level of a mediocre TV crime show. But otherwise, the cinematography is very nice, the compositions are great at times, and in general the individual elements (the piano, the teeth with projection) are interesting and imaginative. Thanks for that, really. And by the way, the last such good Czech sci-fi film was a long 61 years ago!

You can't teach new tricks to an old dog. Richard Fleischer was a film giant, a representative of old classic Hollywood, who wanted to catch up with the fresh wave of New Hollywood. He chose a topical theme that resonated in society and about which he had no idea, and it didn't work. It's such a succession of episodes, without any unifying storyline, George C. Scott, the main attraction, is on the sidelines, the motivation for his fatal move is very poor. The whole thing has a terribly soporific pace, even though it shows everyday police work, deals with crime, drugs and violence against women. And when it comes to the intimate scenes, Stacy Keach can't sell them as an actor, with some shallow elevator music playing in the background. It's historically interesting from perhaps the only two perspectives that would absolutely not pass today as they are racist and socially objectionable: blacks are here as the despicable dregs of society who only make trouble, as are gays when a cop tells his wife that he and his colleagues were hunting fags in the park.

Issa López turned a potentially straightforward and dark crime drama into a soap opera. So thank you, and we're sending a keychain.

The connection between Nic Pizzolatto and movies is not a hit parade, but in the series he has clearly found himself. Starting with the excellent The Killing and ending with this eight-hour treat, it's as if you're sitting in a fancy restaurant, eating premium caviar and topping it off with a 50-year-old Riesling. Surprisingly, it’s a bit, but really only a tiny bit, spoiled by Matthew McConaughey and its overacting in places,and an accent you don't trust so much, but script-wise it's flawless. The story spans many years, yet the character development of both detectives is believable and it builds up nicely in the end. The Louisiana setting explicitly invites some redneck nastiness, the locals are proper rednecks and the killer rightly murderous. And the way the script relativizes the line between good and evil at times is downright delightful.

That's a bad joke, right? From Cary Fukunaga's brilliant first series with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, it's a descent into the mire (snow), with Jodie Foster, whose sober performance is the only believable element in this mess. Even the silliest Austrian crime dramas that air on TV in the morning make more sense. It's utterly muddled, with scenes that don't build on each other, it introduces a bunch of characters into the story but nothing comes of it and sometimes it slides into self-deprecating parody. And with a terrible soundtrack to boot. I like the mystery, I wouldn't even mind it in this series, which has always held its ground, but there's nothing to latch on to here, even knowing that this is only the first episode. I'm giving it 2 stars out of mercy, or because it looks cinematic, but Issa Lopez will probably slowly go on my blacklist.

Here, more than with other films, you realize that even great filmmakers should have a producer's oversight, someone to tell them that such monstrous running time is untenable. Martin Scorsese's seminal works always flirted with three hours, but they had incredible pacing and were watchable in one breath. Here, I was hooked only with the arrival of the investigators and the final catharsis, which was powerful, so it took like two horus for things to get going, and I write this as someone who likes slow films and their gradual introduction to the plot. Nasty things happen, but I felt almost no tension and the bland monotone music didn't help. And someone should tell Leonardo DiCaprio that constantly crabbing his mouth into an inverted U is not a sign of good acting. So aside from the traditionally reliable Robert De Niro, I was only impressed with Lily Gladstone. Her quiet strength, soulful expression and engaging minimalist acting was something to behold. I wouldn't hesitate to call her the heart of the whole film, the one element of goodness in the human filth around her. I'm glad to see that similar artistically ambitious films are still being made in these bastardised, tik-tok times, but I'm afraid Marty won't be expanding his Oscar collection this time around.

Better than Quantumania and I do believe Nia DaCosta is a talented director. The problem is that she said she wanted to make a film that her young daughter would enjoy watching. And that's it. The target audience for this mess is somewhere between the ages of five and early adolescence, and the rest of us are probably going to have a hard time digesting this over-the-top girl-power manifesto, and with a female villain who is the biggest casting blunder in the entire Marvel franchise. Yes, it's got one funny idea (the scene to the music of A.L. Webber), but watching the rest of it is only entertaining in its reassurance of how Marvel is in a downhill and doesn't know which way to go.

I could have done without the last half-hour, where the loses its breath, but until then it's a riveting fresco, with an anti-war appeal at the very end, something much needed in these days of Putin's saber-rattling.