Isherwood

This is an event. The initial puzzlement has a quick half-life, as those disembodied moments eventually stand out more than the tangible pressure. It’s a screenwriting university on how to handle the "based on a true story" license while staying in observation mode. It’s a perfect study of human arrogance, lack of humility, and unwillingness to face the truth. A live broadcast of lies that has been coming to us for over thirty years. With all due respect to all the criticisms, the hype is well deserved.

The most exciting physics lecture of all time. A nuclear split between superb acting and clean editing. The speech about lies that owe a debt to the truth is a screenwriting pearl that appears only once a season.

...and reality is worse than any conceivable fiction. To hell with personal planes, here you don't look into the core, the core looks into you. Iodine tablets instead of popcorn.

"Ha ha ha." (Vincent V., 14 months)

The Black Priestess Germania floats through space and time and is invoked by six worshippers. This isn't a music video anymore, it's a 10-minute load that's worth 2 full-length feature films. The visual stylization of historical futility was last seen in A Field in England, saddled by a technocratic Jägermeister, and it has the spiritual charge of the song "This is America." Yes, it's a pure provocation, but that was accompanying Rammstein even when they didn't have grey hairs peeking out of their thinning hair. The moment of defiance across history is editing perfection that pursues emotion with the urgency of a wolf.

I suppose a few critics will knock it down and talk condescendingly about its (in)qualities, while not forgetting to lean on the underlying ideas. However, I especially appreciate the clean-cut across audience preferences that promise to entertain everyone regardless of who they are. I have to finish watching it just to see if Prušinovský and Kolečko will keep the balance, or if someone will write angry denunciations against the biased dramaturgists. The first episode is a 10/10, and this is a once-in-two-decade event in the Czech Republic.

Halfway through the series, I found myself itching to go on Wikipedia but also making sure not to read all the info about this case, which just drips with bizarreness. I lasted until the end and then marveled at the fact that Ben Stiller had sanded down the edges a bit, especially in terms of the nature of the main duo. They are not laughing con men, but a couple of assholes who you may like for their casting, but in your deep righteous core you don't really want them to escape. It could have been made into a two-hour film with the same message, but then we would have been deprived of a precise directorial ride, with Stiller accurately guiding his characters and a soundtrack that works with a mood that goes against audience expectations and genre clichés. It's slow and you know how it's going to turn out, but I haven't experienced this weekly torture of eagerly pacing in front of the TV waiting for the "play" button to be active on the streaming service in years. There is a lot hiding behind the seemingly plain and grey façade of the prison - a systemic indictment, broken family ties, and the incredible engine of desire for freedom. You can take as much as you like from it. It won't be a perennial in the future, lacking more audience highlights and a bigger push for gold-plated awards, but the overwhelming feeling of a creative job well done will stay with me for a long time.

When you've been on maternity leave longer than the biological clock approves, that shrunken world of baby diapers, dirty clothes, and runny noses may need to be stretched beyond the edge where good morals brush up against the paragraphs of the law. It’s a teasing probe into the loving embrace of all-powerful mothers, whose world we may not seem to understand, but in many ways we share with them. I wouldn't be fooled by the detective storyline, as even the less astute will soon figure out who deserves to die. Yet the gradual path to the inevitable end is interwoven with a fascinating web of seeming banalities, conversations eavesdropped on from life that form a fascinating whole. Vallée is an editing master, and all he has to do is look away for half a second at the right moment and he leads the viewer as if on a string. Perhaps this is girl power in a way we may not want to see it and yet we absolutely must. I’m looking forward to the next season.

A fascinating world of women, dominated by dense shadows of the past and directorial mastery. Gillian Flynn, of course, supplied the strong book as inspiration, but it is securely stitched in a tight shape thanks to Vallée's virtuosity. I haven't watched much this year and perhaps the times have moved on, but with this series, I spent eight hours admiring the meticulously precise work with the actors and the editing, which, with precisely placed half-second shots, disrupts the normal structure and lets the tension thicken to unsuspected dimensions. The main female trio will wrap the viewer in their arms from the first moments and keep their eyes glued to the screen. The traditionally excellent Amy Adams and the terrifying Patricia Clarkson are complemented by Eliza Scanlen, who handles the position of "spoiled bitch" with absolute ease. Yes, the plot could be cut down to two hours and it could still be a strong genre film, but stretching it over eight episodes allows for unsuspected things and that "nothing," the oppressive stillness when you're praying for it to get going, is unbearable in a pleasantly chilling way. It's too bad that the final episode doesn't pull it off on the same level, breaking the existing order and bringing everything to a hasty conclusion. It didn't overwhelm the feeling of having watched a highly intense spectacle, but in a long debate afterward, my wife drowned me out with arguments that it was a shame and actually disrespectful to the rest of us. And on this show, women rule. It gets a very sharp 9/10.

It happens once every few years, but at Kavčí Hory they hit the jackpot and at the right moment distilled one of the most bizarre cases of the Czech liquor business. The first half goes smoothly without stumbling, and the viewer can only wonder how this duo of complete idiots mix a batch for which bartender certifications are not even awarded in the most remote corner of eastern Moravia. The director pumps it into the viewer with shots, relentlessly, all while holding a disturbing cymbal and with great actors (the hunchbacked Vaculík evokes sympathy, David Máj anger and Bambušek gives a lesson in being an asshole for years to come). When the police team enters the game, it takes a completely different direction and starts flowing in liters (emotion and tension), occasionally reaching far beyond the usual genre framework of Czech crime stories. The unfamiliar actors (the excellent Finger and charismatic Fridrich) perform brilliantly written dialogues, with no friction anywhere, and even though you know who will spend life in prison and who will play it through lawyers in the end, it won't let you breathe. Who cares about the simplification? This is high-quality stuff that I enjoyed tasting for three hours.