NinadeL

The ending is a combination of kitsch in the style of Downton Abbey (everyone important gets their happy ending), and at the same time, there's plenty of time for the brawl between the SA and SS, the opulent beauty of the Zeppelin airship's interior, and a fight involving the Gypsy boxer (and future German champion) Johann Trollmann. But the only thing that truly matters is Fred Jacoby's awakening, as he realizes that nothing in the world is worth working for a propaganda rag. Yes, the denazification of Germany has been working since 1945, and this is the result.

Sharp humor and genuinely sad situations polarized to the extreme. Alan is going through another divorce, Charlie is somewhere between the bedroom and the bathroom, and Herb is getting married... but the best jokes, as usual, come from Berta, Evelyn, and Kandi. A memorable episode is the one featuring Rose's "departure" and, of course, the wedding, which happened exactly how Judith definitely didn’t want it to.

This series began very ambitiously, and there was good reason for that. The lavish previous seasons became the most prominent German export, representing in a nutshell that legendary myth of the Weimar Republic... An unmistakable combination of decadence, corruption, politics, art, and crisis. Who wouldn’t be curious about what 1931 had in store for the homicide squad and everyone else fighting daily on the brink of poverty? While the previous seasons still provided a very realistic depiction of that time within the realm of fiction, emotionally believable and dramatically compelling, the 4th season seems to have become more of a guidebook. There are too many plotlines, too many characters without strong connections, and at least three or four separate finales followed one after another in the second half of the series. But where did the point of the Sonnenborn project go? Why did the climactic action of the Berlin police unfold in the style of Al Capone? And was it really necessary to introduce yodeling at Moka Efti? So many questions. Nevertheless, the train called Babylon Berlin is still moving, and it will be interesting to see whether the filmmakers take Gereon all the way to America or completely part ways with the novels.

The conclusion of the trilogy truly lives up to its name. Everyone is against everyone, and the most surprising element isn't so much the encounter with the Taborite Picards, but rather the recasting of actors from previous films. For instance, Vlasta Matulová transitions from the role of Czech Queen Žofie to the lesser nobility as Ctibor’s daughter Zdena, Václav Voska forgets his role as Čeněk of Wartenberg and becomes the Taborite priest Petr Kániš, or Jaroslav Vojta swiftly transforms from the baker Joha to Šimon, known as Ohnivec. These period missteps are more jarring than the trivial young love, previously portrayed by Marie Tomášová and later replaced by Jana Rybářová in the finale. Otakar Vávra's Hussite trilogy is an inconsistent work in every conceivable aspect and will continue to represent the heaviest burden from the 1950s for a long time, as we Czechs have learned to think differently about the socialist realist films, but the revolutionary Hussitism still remains an unresolved question, one that struggles to resist the appeal of audience-attracting battle scenes.

In Jan Žižka, Otakar Vávra and Miloš Václav Kratochvíl could no longer rely on Jirásek, and it shows. Dramatically, the film is exceptionally weak, and all efforts are in vain because the entire film is devoted exclusively to the Battle of Sudoměř. Nothing else matters, and nothing else makes sense. That's why the whole subplot with Czech King Václav IV, who descended among the common people and learned about their moral qualities, feels so out of place.

Hussitism in Czech cinema has always served merely as a backdrop for the politicized messages of its time. There remains a certain notion that Vávra's films are of good quality for their time, at least from a formal perspective. The great crowd scenes, costumes, and set design by Jiří Trnka contribute significantly. The individual characters are portrayed with theatrical shortcuts, yet despite everything, Jan Hus stands out as the best of the trilogy, perhaps because faith in truth has not yet died.

Predator Brian Peck is defended by almost everyone, claiming that Drake Bell must have "provoked" him. Disgusting. A child never provokes a father figure to commit assault. Never. It turns out that Brian Peck was just one of the trio of pedophiles working under Nickelodeon, the others were Jason Michael Handy and Ezell Channel. Horrible things are happening on the set of iCarly, and it's even crazier because it's such a successful business, supported by Michelle Obama, and is basically the only competition for Hannah Montana. More issues come from the set of Zoey 101, where adults forced kids to make one sexual innuendo after another, but because Dan Schneider was too strong in his position as creator, no one said anything to him. But watching young Ariana Grande masturbate without her knowledge is too perverse. Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy even wrote a book about her experience on set, and it still wasn't enough. However, a ban on working with actors is coming, which Dan Schneider is trying to solve by creating more series like Henry Danger and Danger Force... and only in a post #MeToo world is it possible to truly make a change.

It's incredibly difficult to watch, this story about the predator Dan Schneider, who was the creator of The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes. Testimonies from his colleagues, former child stars... The working conditions were unbelievable, with two scriptwriters having to share one salary and similar atrocities, exploitation of child labor, constant sexist remarks, and so on. It was disgusting. A display of power in a relatively small TV network in the 90s.

Overall, a fairly acceptable documentary, pleasant in its form and gentle in its relationship to the object of desire. Unfortunately, besides the excerpts from adaptations of Dangerous Liaisons, there are also inserted scenes from two films dedicated to another 18th-century hero... Casanova and Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence, which is an unnecessary diversion on such a small scale. Some viewers might think that de Laclos was adapted during the silent film era, but the novel is so scandalous that it became acceptable to filmmakers only at the end of the 1950s.

It still has certain qualities; it’s really great that covid didn’t cut the series short, but the part focusing on the birth of the United States is quite exhausting now (though logically more attractive to an American audience). The constant dramas are so repeatedly fatal that it paradoxically leads to numbness. I’ve long stopped investing any emotions in these characters and don’t care about them. Moreover, the time travel has lost its charm because it’s too frequent and constantly used as an easy solution to various situations. The main characters’ family is growing, secondary characters are changing, but the energy that it had in the first three books/series is long gone. The only positive aspect I would note is that Gabaldon portrays the 1960s in Scotland in a soberly negative way.