NinadeL

The basic message is primitive: violence is bad, yes. Everything else is just filler hanging on a formal pun, which ultimately degenerated into the fact that everyone must have heard something at some point about Monica Bellucci (an absolute goddess at the time) filming a very naturalistic rape scene. But the point of why this was so has been lost in the rumor mill. Such a process is irreversibly odd and the overall project is therefore useless and the uproar around it downright empty. And there was somehow going to be a groundbreaking film told backwards in 2002? Nobody believes that.

At the beginning were the legendary performances of Almodóvar's darlings, Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz, who otherwise classically star independently of each other in his films. After that, they were forgotten and the whole thing surprisingly culminated in the warmest comedy based on the song "I'm so excited." I don't have a problem with something like that, especially if it all ends so optimistically, my captain. ;)

Almodóvar's first film, which opened with a scene with Penélope Cruz, and stars Javier Bardem. At the bottom of the passion is the classic Spanish relationship chaos, where everyone acts like a UFO, looks like a UFO, and pretends at festivals that it's all so interesting, new, original, and somehow revelatory. Ok, then. If that's enough to make you happy, go ahead and watch a rerun.

This is classic 1990s comedy. Everyone is in their place, looking and acting exactly as they should. The lead roles are split between Michael J. Fox and Kirk Douglas for good measure and I loved Nancy Travis in the American version of Three Men and a Baby, and if you pay attention, you'll find the lovely Kirsten Dunst among the children. They don't make films like this anymore, and if you like that time period, you'll find it to your liking.

The Crazy Ones is the latest series thus far from TV matador of the past David E. Kelley. In the half-hour comedy episodes written for Robin Williams, everything works like a charm - the cadence of the fantastic dialogue knows no bounds, the wit is fresh, and the themes of the individual ideas of the Lewis, Roberts + Roberts ad agency are catchy. So where is the problem? Both Kelley and Williams are making something as if they were living not after 2010 but before 1990. While that adds a fresh charm to the series, and fans of both will find it fascinating - Sarah Michelle Gellar even inspired this creative pairing to take a completely different acting stance - I can't help but feel that the series also ultimately came to a premature end, namely that it takes place yesterday and tackles yesterday's problems through the lens of yesterday. It's new nostalgia and it's not for everyone.

An absolutely epic adventure from Filmation, the studio that brought us the best in TV animation entertainment at the time. While Adam/He-Man's adventures had reached their climax, it was time to pass the sword of power to his newfound sister Adora. Through the classic path of awakening (as tends to happen in fantasy), Adora had developed sympathy for the oppressed side of good, even though she had been raised in a lie by the doubly evil Transformer Hordak and the sorceress Shadow Weaver, and was able to become She-Ra, Princess of Power. Yes, the animation is a bit thin by today's standards, but the story is good enough to hold your attention even today. The musical motifs have grace, and the regularly recurring melody during the transformations is perfection itself. They both begin with the winged phrase "By the power of Grayskull...!" and He-Man continues "I have the power!" and She-Ra counters "I am She-Ra!" and it rumbles perfectly. I’d like to look around for the entire series because it's too good to pass up. The world of Eternia and Masters of the Universe is an absolute foreshadowing of Hercules and Xena.

The combination of Ira Levin's brain and Sharon Stone's beauty is irresistible to me. Levine isn't just "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives" to me, but also "The Boys from Brazil" and "A Kiss Before Dying." While I understand that if most people remember Sliver as a hit starting on HBO in the dubbed version, half the charm is gone, but come on! We’ve got stalking, hidden cameras and telescopes everywhere you look, open conversations about sex, restaurant conversations like something out of Hungry for You, and sex scenes that even young Joe wouldn’t be ashamed of, and it all works perfectly. We also have Howard Shore's music and my favorite early 1990s feel, and now everything is complete.

The 1980s were full of all the Beastmaster, Conan, Deathstalker, and Dragonslayer films, as well as The Sword and Sorcerer, The Neverending Story, the beautiful Legend or Labyrinth, and Krull and Willow. Female versions included Barbarian Queen, Ladyhawke, and Red Sonja. And if the animated He-Man had ruled television since 1983, it was clear that a feature-length version of his adventures wouldn't be long in coming. Personally, I would have appreciated one more film with She-Ra by his side, but you can't have everything right away. Masters of the Universe features an excellent cast of Frank Langella, Meg Foster, and Courteney Cox. It's all so straightforward and fast-paced that there's no time to get bored, and if the viewer agrees to take part in the subtext between Skeletor and He-Man, it's doubly fun.

Pedro Almodóvar doesn't become a director I love this time around either, but thanks to the Prague City theaters' production, I'm somewhat more comfortable with the Oscar-winning phenomenon All About My Mother. It really helped me to see both Penélope Cruz and Evellyn Pacoláková in the same role, because only in this way could Hermana Rosa become a real character in my eyes and not just a variation of a familiar face. And I could go on. All About Eve is better in the theatrical version, but the transvestite Agrado is obviously better in the film, because what Vladimir Marek does on the stage is a disaster. All in all, I'll try a few more things from the Almodóvar/Cruz collection, but I think we're done. His world exists on the completely opposite side of cinema from the one in which I exist. On paper, the story must have looked great - all the coincidences, transvestites, intersections with art, and cheeky one-liners - but in its final form, it's just about improbable situations, cinematic coincidences, and glycerine tears.

Unforgettable is a classic case-of-the-week-style series, enhanced by the intriguing ability of the main character and the charisma of Dylan Walsh. The series has been canceled several times but has made it all the way to Season 4, which at least highlights the fact that it may not be that much of a series. So if you have even latent sympathy, there is no reason not to indulge in Unforgettable.