JFL

Delightfully guileless trash, which was admittedly made by the director in collaboration with his then adolescent son. The result makes an impression not only with its absurd mechanicalness, remaining precisely faithful to the child’s perspective and an insipid screenplay with an absurd and predictable twist, but also with an overabundance of honestly (though by no means innovatively) conceived stunts and one explosive car chase that, through its dimension of realism and precise grasp, easily outshines most similar sequences of the digital era.

School of Rock unfolds like a standard movie about a character undergoing a positive personal transformation, this time set in an uptight elite elementary school, and in doing so, it confirms the validity of this category’s viewership, even though what makes it likable is mainly the casting and directorial approach rather than superficial emotional manipulation. Linklater understood the unrestrained force of nature that he had at hand in the form of Jack Black and he adapts the filming of the scenes in very long shots that firmly plant Black’s frantically clownish persona in an otherwise rigid environment. Though Black’s protagonist is the chaotic centrepiece of School of Rock, the film as a whole stands on the shoulders of the brilliantly and non-formulaically cast and directed child actors.

Caligula is a profligately perverse and operatically opulent work not only in the sense of what was finally shown on the screen, but also in terms of the production concept and the collision of the multiple obstinate visions of the pompous egomaniacs who came together for this project. Caligula allegedly exists in multiple versions and I am personally of the opinion that in order to fully appreciate all aspects of this work, it is necessary to experience the longest version available, with a 156-minute runtime. Of course, it is bastardised and vulgar and disregards Tinto Brass’s putative creative intent in favour of the unhinged irrationality of Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, who served as the film’s producer. But that is exactly what Caligula is supposed to be, an ostentatious megalomaniacal vision of ostentatious megalomania, the corrosion of judgment in a position of absolute power and unquestioned authority. One could just as well be amazed at the delirious blending of the aesthetics of modern opera with Brass’s promiscuity and Penthouse’s boudoir pseudo-eroticism. The sets combine cheap spectacle with design exuberance, where living statues of penetrating performers become part of the scenery, with acting greats pompously declaiming around them. Caligula is simply a manifestation of the impertinence of Guccione’s ambition to make an epic adult film, for which he fittingly chose the equally pompous swine Vidal and Brass. But despite the arrogant declarations of these two men, the film remains Guccione’s project, thanks to which it comes across as so uniquely unhinged. ___ It’s cute that Thomas Negovan, as an obstinate fan, peculiarly convinced of the correctness of his view, embarked on Caligula – The Ultimate Cut (formerly also Caligula: Orgy of Power). Emboldened by the idea that he would elevate the ridiculed and maligned work, he set out to improve the sets by means of computer tricks, throw out explicit shots and to mine previously unused material for performances that seem less absurd. He swore that his version would be a Brassian director’s cut based on the last version of the screenplay. Brass was dismissive of the whole project and brought a lawsuit against it. That ultimately means that in this case it isn’t a contribution to the adored category of director’s versions, but we rather find ourselves exclusively in the realm of modding or fan editing, where only die-hard fans refuse to accept a work as it is presented to them. In other words, a fine curiosity, but there forever remains only one Caligula – bastardised, phantasmagorical and irrational, but also fascinating because of that.

A solid screensaver in the form of an artsy Brazilian version of Wild Prague.

Ideologically old-world but formalistically progressive, The Train can be seen as bridge between the era of epic war movies of previous years and the action-adventure flicks in a war setting that came in later years. From the former category, The Train takes a stellar ensemble cast, as well as a sombre ethos and grand moral questions, which form the film’s backbone. From the latter category, it can be said that emphasis is placed on the action scenes and spectacle. But none of the films that came later (whether we take the Clint Eastwood movies or a bunch of Italian genre flicks as examples) can match The Train in this respect. Frankenheimer stages captivating sequences in which he uses precise compositions with multiple planes where he constantly makes the presence of the characters felt within that grand action. The most important thing here is the breathtaking moments when the actors are present at or directly involved in dangerous feats in close proximity to passing trains, crashing locomotives and exploding railway stations. As pointed out by Christopher McQuarrie, who holds the film up as a reference work for the new Mission: Impossible, in a number of scenes it is amazing how they managed to do this in an era before digital effects and how many sequences give the viewer the feeling of being close to the action, because everything is simply captured in the camera as it happens instead of using optical effects and rear projections. Also, in many of the suspenseful passages, the filmmakers take care to set the action in what are clearly actual places, which are used thoroughly to dramatic effect in the given sequences. As a result, the one or two scenes shot in a studio or in modified interiors inevitably seem out of place.

The Pope of Greenwich Village comes across as an attempt to bring into the extravagantly big-haired 1980s the type of early Scorsese films from the ’60s and ’70s about flawed heroes who are confronted with moral questions about their relationships with others while operating on the edge of the law. The result is an ostentatiously self-important film in which every actor and actress mentioned in the opening credits has at least one scene comprising an acting showcase reserved just for them. Naturally, Rourke and Roberts are in full-on thespian mode the whole time. But in their case and that of all the others – whether hopeless (Hannah) or outstanding (Page, Young) – it comes across as terribly forced, theatrical and ridiculous. Not to mention that the film’s episodic characters thoroughly outshine the leads, which is primarily due to the fact that, unlike the protagonists, they are not macho assholes who let their own pomposity get them into shit because they dumbly fulfil nonsensical masculine roles and are then terribly surprised by the outcome. The screenplay has a lot of potential when it sets aside the mobsters and cops and focuses on the two loser protagonists, who infuse everything with their bullshit. If it had contained a critical element, the film could have been a biting treatise on the myth of the American Dream. However, there is no such detached view and (unlike in the works of Scorsese, among others) we have here just more adoration of self-centred boors without a shred of self-reflection or any effort to problematise them. ___ P.S.: Okay, I’m raising my rating of this film because I have to admit that Roberts’s acting showcase, where he blathers on a street bench about the “artificial inspiration” of horses while making an enormous sandwich, on which he then proceeds to gorge himself, is such a goofily random and gratuitous performance that it is simply unforgettable. It definitely puts him in the hall of fame of distinctive gastronomic character profiling and culinary inspirations for viewers alongside the egg cheese sandwich in Birds of Prey and all of the dishes in Cartoon Network’s top series, from bacon pancakes in Adventure Time to the pizza in Gumball.

To say Mars Express is the French Ghost in the Shell means placing inordinate expectations on the new film, as well as needlessly placing emphasis on the parallels between the two works. Though it obviously paraphrases Ghost and other genre classics, the feature-length project from the creator of the excellent series Lastman has its own original premise, imaginative sci-fi concepts and great worldbuilding associated with them. The resulting form further relies on cool visuals and a gripping mix of action, thriller and sci-fi derived from well-spaced motifs of identity in an era when consciousness and memories are transferable to robotic bodies. As cyberpunk consciously based on the themes and visuals of previous genre milestones, Mars Express isn’t captivating as a unique work, but it is likable simply due to the fact that not many new contributions to the category are being made and definitely none that are this good.

In 2001, DreamWorks released Shrek, whose box-office success had fatal consequences for mainstream animation. Whereas Pixar promised to advance the technological and expressive means of computer animation with every new project and to come up with new worlds and stories, Shrek demonstrated that it sufficed to have a broadly funny screenplay with smart-ass pop-culture references and viewers wouldn’t really give a damn about the quality of the animation. Sony Pictures Animation changed the game in 2018 with its animated Spider-Man and even the complacent bosses at DreamWorks understood that viewers would henceforth no longer be satisfied only with bubble-gum cartoon characters illustrating verbal jokes. Alongside The Bad Guys, the new Puss in Boots boasts a visual refresh that greatly benefited from the stylistic facelift. Though the screenplay rather exhibits the characteristics of direct-to-video sequels (few characters and settings, a straightforward narrative that vaguely benefits from the world previously presented, a repeat of the structure and concept of the previous instalment of the franchise), the animation elevates everything to the level of a grandiose spectacle. For one thing, instead of the long-utilised pseudo-realism, where every single hair on an animal’s coat and photorealistic reflections and shadows played first fiddle, the overall visual concept takes on the stylisation of tempera paintings, though not on a large scale, but rather in micro dimensions. Thanks to this, small details and surface textures can still stand out, but the overall impression is miles away from the toy-like artificiality of classic computer animation. The action scenes formalistically take on the expressive vocabulary of anime, with spectacular poses, rapid cuts and the contrast of slow-motion and, conversely, accelerated movement suggested by quick jumps between key images and individual poses. Though the animation here does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to attracting the viewer’s attention, it is not divorced from the whole, as it remains firmly symbiotic with the screenplay, the foley effects and – in the case of international releases – the dubbing. This cohesion is most evident in the imposing character of the antagonist wolf, which is a magnificent audio-visual feat in and of itself.

--- TL;DR version --- 1) The Last Boy Scout enjoys the reputation of being a cult classic only in the Czech Republic. 2) It defined a form of masculine coolness for a generation of Czech viewers, but in doing so, it unfortunately set for them a pattern of chauvinistic behaviour. 3) At its core, it disturbingly has a lot in common with Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. 4) It’s a minor miracle, or rather proof of the talent of everyone involved, that the result ultimately holds together so well despite all of the problems that arose during production. --- long version with arguments --- Among Czech movie fans, especially those born in the 1980s, The Last Boy Scout is regarded as an absolute cult classic and the benchmark of the buddy/action-movie category. But that is only a local phenomenon. In the country of its origin, The Last Boy Scout conversely has the status of an obscure genre flick that few people remember fondly. This is illustrated by the variation in ratings in Czech and international film databases (IMDB: 7/10, Leterboxd: 3.4/5) and the low average of foreign ratings (Rotten Tomatoes: 46%, Metacritic: 52%). The film was also re-released on Blu-ray in the past decade. Unlike many other titles from the filmographies of the people involved – including The Last Action Hero and Hudson Hawk – The Last Boy Scout shows no potential for re-release by its parent studio, or even by any of the labels like Shout, Imprint, Arrow or Lorber that focus exclusively on releasing both popular and niche cult flicks. After all, the international rights manager for cinema releases marvelled at the fact that we returned this film to the big screen in the Czech Republic with screenings at the Aero and Scala cinemas. _____ The renown enjoyed by The Last Boy Scout in the Czech Republic is largely due to the original ultra-vulgar dubbing of the first VHS release in the country, which in the 1990s made the film a generational cult classic among adolescent boys and became a legend quoted in school classrooms. I myself was then one of the boys who watched the main characters’ macho trash talk based on cutting each other down, or at least brushing off an unseemly remark. I was also impressed by the adoration of the film’s masculine formulas and posturing. The Last Boy Scout celebrates heroes who show their feelings only for a fraction of a second and wrapped up in tough-guy one-liners or pathos-ridden fatefulness. I believed that the hallmarks of male coolness were sullen expressions, smart-assery, bitterness, cynicism and permanent pain, none of which could bring on a bout of whining. A significant part of The Last Boy Scout’s local cultural capital is due to how well it is able to sell and implement patterns of chauvinistic hypermasculinity. The film’s tepid or rather negative reception in the US was due to the fact that at the time of its release, critics there were already turning against not only excessive violence, but also the country’s gender dynamics, toxic masculinity and concentrated misogyny. In other words, things that were on the way out in Hollywood productions at the time were conversely welcomed with belated enthusiasm in the Eastern Bloc, which was intoxicated with new, unrestrained freedom. Actually, it is thus no wonder that in some local boys, their enchantment turned into uncritical acceptance not only of the film, but unfortunately also of the values that it so successfully foisted on them. My counterparts from MovieZone may indulgently turn a blind eye to this, but I venture to say that their confident personas, which they present not only to their readers and viewers of their video/pod-casts, but also to each other, are a telling illustration of the influence of The Last Boy Scout. After all, it’s not a coincidence that they possessively defend it with overly clever (post-)90s bullshitting about how foreign critics simply don’t know what is good. However, they are far from being alone in this attitude, as they are merely the most popular voices of that specific form of guyness (at least feigned in public), which, in comparison with younger bros, is imbued with Black’s typical cynicism with a significant helping of overweening arrogance and self-flagellating martyrdom. _____ Which brings us to the screenplay, which (when we strip away the fannish adoration) is nothing more than the misogynistic fantasy of a bitter egoist after a breakup. That someone would write himself out of the misery of a breakup is not a bad thing in and of itself. The same roots gave rise to, for example, the superbly self-reflective and cathartic (500) Days of Summer. But they also gave rise to Tommy Wiseau’s legendarily off-the-rails ego trip The Room. Shane Black shares with Wiseau the ethos that the hero is the world’s greatest guy. But whereas in The Room everyone else knows that about the hero, with the exception of the “unfaithful bitch” who betrayed him, in The Last Boy Scout Black wrote his own pomposity into a messianic hero who is opposed by everyone and everything. The greater gratification thus naturally comes when the hero, despite all setbacks, sticks to his guns, thus ultimately showing everyone that his way is the right way. Where Wiseau indulges in pompous gratification in the climax of conceited martyrdom, Black comes up with a less theatrical but all the more terrifying conclusion. The happy ending of The Last Boy Scout prescriptively re-establishes the traditional family and order, while at the same time highlighting their toxicity. The idyll sketched out in the epilogue is purely one-sided with the absolute authority of the father, to whom absolutely everyone submits and humbly salutes. Not to mention that the entire situation of the hero and his family is derived solely from certain preconceived patriarchal delusions that the man is supposed to take care of his family and be respected for it. Joe Hallenbeck is the idealised projection screen for all frustrated men who bottle up their fucked-up lives and think that the highest form of expressing their feelings is to tell someone to fuck off with a roguish smile.  _____ Unlike The Room, however, The Last Boy Scout is not artless, off-kilter dreck, but a very inventively constructed and tremendously effective spectacle. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Shane Black was a screenwriting star, combining would-be nonconformity with clever reflection of genre formulas. But at the core of all of Black’s work there is a typically fierce fanboyish desire to give back to the classic physical genres their coolness and wow effect with which they seduced their most loyal and enchanted audience, which, despite the age ratings, was always composed of boys on the threshold of adolescence. Black most honestly materialised this in what is clearly his best work, namely his debut screenplay for The Monster Squad, an excellent self-reflective children’s adventure with its roots in classic horror movies. But characteristically for the action genre as an obstinately would-be adult spectacle, his later works abandon the unbridled childlike exuberance and instead get buried in conservative myths about debauched and corrupt elites opposed by ordinary good guys. It is thus unsurprising that The Last Boy Scout is the cinematic equivalent of Frank Miller’s Sin City comic book series, which began publication in the same period but, due to the medium, could dare to be more ostentatious, objectifying, explicit and brutal. _____  In the end, however, the craftsmanship of the resulting film is praiseworthy, especially in light of the emerging stories of how the bloated egos of four men at the supposed peak of their careers – screenwriter Shane Black, producer Joel Silver, director Tony Scott and star Bruce Willis – clashed during production. In short, Black turned in a boorishly nihilistic and extreme screenplay (peculiarly elevated to the level of myth by Czech fans of The Last Boy Scout) for which he received a record-breaking fee in advance. The notorious control freak Silver meddled in every aspect of production, toned down Black’s rampant misogynistic fantasies and, after shooting had been completed, removed Scott, who was in the process of developing his impressionistic style with the film. And Willis couldn’t get along with his equally megalomaniacal co-star Damon Wayans, whose star was on the rise while Willis’s career was going in circles and his star was shining brightly only in the eastern territories. Unlike other productions plagued by creative differences, none of this is obviously evident in the final result, which Stuart Baird edited into shape. Since Scott was not involved in the final cut, it is rather surprising that the material that he shot was assembled into a final form that fits perfectly into the director’s filmography with its style, impressive surreal neon-noir visuals and fast-paced editing.

In the mould of Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Takeshi Kitano also banks on the samurai myth. Unlike the oppressive vision developed by Tsukamoto in the low-budget Killing, the master of deadpan humour has come up with a flashy costume epic that he approaches as a mercilessly caustic farce. In Kitano’s interpretation, the samurai ethos is shown to be absurdly empty bullshit that just destroys lives while having no real value or foundation. Similarly, the whole Japanese system consisting in the hereditary hierarchy is portrayed by the director, screenwriter and the actor playing one of the characters as completely demented nonsense that deprives people of their individuality and binds everyone to senseless subordination to the whims of a handful of privileged maniacs. The film’s narrative literally shows that this tradition, which is still revered by many Japanese today, relied on a senseless cycle of killing for promotion, so it is no wonder that those who went through it and held onto their positions for a while were driven to absolute madness. In addition to samurai virtues and the hierarchy of the period, Kitano also makes fun of many revered figures from Japanese history. He depicts all of the characters as buffoons and whores, though only very few of them are aware that they are such. But make no mistake, Kitano presents all of the above as spectacularly spiteful fun that gives his iconoclastic epic an appropriately sharp edge.