Isherwood

Almost two years of waiting for... total shit! The retarded script was to be expected given the subject matter, but such a shallow result from a well-pitched plot with such a (!!!) cast is an outrage! Mann's routine approach, which piles on more and less successful copies of any action crap that's gathering dust in the rental stores, buries even the hints of anything that could pass for a quality B-movie. Moreover, the decadence of the plot jumps out too much in this concentration of stupidity, where we are actually supposed to cheer for ordinary murderers and one fallen character, a whiny priest who seeks salvation at the bottom of a bottle of booze. There’s no hyperbole, there’s no grit, and there are no catchphrases. Aside from the Adkins vs. Hu fight, the perfect Ian Somerhalder, and the bar shootout, it's one big "unfuckingbeliveable boring piece of shit."

Jaume Collet-Serra, the loser responsible for the desperately routine House of Wax, is supposed to coach the evil kid, one of those who are now (theoretically) supposed to be popular? I have no idea if he’s been talked out of it since then, or kept sedated in Hollywood, but please keep on making films just like this in the future! Considering the subject matter, the film goes quite outside the established horror practices of recent years, and so we get to watch two hours of PRECISE psychological games that confirm the holy truth that horror is all about the characters. It takes courage today to make the viewer tense by having characters more or less just having a dialogue with each other, but if it gets a little rough every now and then, the scriptwriter is supported by perfect actors. The adults are flawless, and the kids too, but twelve-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman gives me the chills (although according to the photos on IMDb, she’s actually a cute girl). It’s too bad that in the end, Serra didn't have the balls to get rid of the traditional genre vice, the clichéd ending. Whether or not DiCaprio and Silver were properly aware of what they were putting out into the world, I say again: just like this!

Rob Zombie and his concept of "pop culture," which in this case means referencing everything he can think of (TV products – including commercials, Nazis, zombies, Dr. Satan, porn, manga, kaiju-eiga, classic horror movies...). Objectively, this film can certainly be accused of being a patchwork with not much of a story that could have done without Superbeast. Yet I think the opposite is true, as the leitmotif about the siblings saving the world is so primitive that it holds up perfectly given the rest of it, whose level of fun depends mainly on the audience’s willingness to agree to this hellishly sick game. I haven’t had this good a time in quite a while. 4 ½ (I’m setting aside the final ½ until I watch it again).

After the sympathetic B-movie Condemned, Stone Cold looked solid, although, like most of the wrestlers throwing punches in the film, he hasn’t gained much acting talent. But his easy-going good-guy charisma carried the film. And the very next film he arrives with is a heartwarming story about a reformed muggle who fights for one child's heart and about keeping a relationship between an "absolutely hot chick" and a total loser intact. It wouldn't matter so much if the banging in the ring was a bit more clear and, most importantly, more frequent. Considering the runtime, a lot of unnecessary time is spent talking, which in a genre film like this is a punch to the solar plexus.

An unparalleled genre delicacy. It's hard to say whether the director is a genius or a madman, but the way he coaches the little killers is absolutely perfect. The Christmas spirit takes over at the family lunch when someone gets stabbed with a fork for the first time and from then on, Shankland collects only bonus points. I haven't seen something so nerve-wracking and physically uncomfortable in years. The moment the viewer rises above the questions of "why and how?", they must inevitably BELIEVE that the children are capable of it, just as the parents' motives are understandable. I’m still getting over it. 4 ½.

Acker's visionary abilities battle with a sub-par script that flutters behind his exuberant imagination, and the result desperately cries out for a more uncompromising dramaturgist whose care would ensure more than just a fully rendered variation on the most recent Terminator. Stretching the original 11 minutes into an hour, not adding a drop of added value to the plot and hoping that "it will somehow carry itself" deserves a slap to the head. Giving these zipped-up bags a chance to show themselves properly on paper would be the most original cartoon far and wide. There is talent is evident here, though.

A film by a filmmaker who loves films. Tarantino's synthesis of B-movie aesthetics has (for now) reached its ultimate stage in the form of a war opus. There’s room for references, his own ego, and a final chapter of historical revisionism that, if it hadn't been making fun of the previous ones all along, would hardly have been understood. A pleasant surprise to my own expectations.

A directing duo with god-given talent versus a below-average Asian ghost film. So what does that amount to? A hell of a bore, mainly due to zero creative invention, which consistently sticks to the style of traditional Hollywood coloring books, using sexy colors of garish shades instead of consistent detail work and subtle shading. The definition of useless.

The fact that it's slightly better than Pathfinder isn't that big of a deal, but in any case, Outlander could have been better if it had clarified what it wanted to be. It smacks of B-movie (the first word in the quickly learned old Norwegian is "fuck"), but there’s far too much deadly seriousness. It's not a "guilty pleasure," it's not even shit worthy of a cesspool. It's a perfect example of how Hollywood can fuck up fifty million dollars (when it earns about 6 million :)).

The moderate Scott, whom Helgeland's screenplay ties to the chain of tolerability in terms of deadly attacks on the first signal system, this time relies mainly on the actors, who make the most of it within the genre banality about the struggle of a good-hearted dispatcher with an insidious kidnapper. There is no point arguing about the psychological portraits of the characters, the snipers who don’t shoot, and a few other question marks. At least it goes by quickly.