DaViD´82

Hell on Earth begins for him, for me doors open into movie heaven. A picture that took great advantage of the “gap" in crime sagas, i.e. the time spent in prison. Usually movies begin at the end (or end and the beginning) of a prison term, or they jump it with a caption reading “X years later". Audiard manages to create a really raw and unpleasantly authentic atmosphere that is at the same time full of poetry, the type of stuff that Michael Mann often smuggles into his movies. Simply a masterly, slow-moving movie. Nothing more, nothing less. And nothing else is needed.

A nature documentary from the BBC. What more do I need to say? Well, OK, this is the same as Planet Earth, not on a global scale this time, but focused fully on one place, the oldest national park in the world, Yellowstone. While the opening, winter episode is completely faultless, overflowing with quantities of unique information and shots, the parts about summer and fall end up rather overshadowed. Apart from the mountaineering bear expeditions it brings nothing that we haven’t seen before even in other documentaries (although never so beautifully) and the fall section is spoiled by cheap philosophizing at the end (while the opening half hour is again perfect; my favorite is Clark’s Nutcracker). However, I’m not sure myself where these are justified objections or if it’s just spoilt nitpicking which is the BBC’s fault for the high quality of its productions.

A synonym for darker than dark, cynical and absurd social comedy that doesn’t know the concept of political correctness? From now on, Louise-Michel!

12 Monkeys in the pub after a few rounds. In the end much less humorous and much smarter than it seemed to be at the beginning (up until the moment with the jukebox, everything thereafter is the reason why I almost went down a star). A beer and a hoodie are as essential kit as a towel when reading “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy".

All of you Rosemund Pilchers and Danielle Steels out there had better start getting worried, Almodóvar has broken into the romance fiction market. Boring romance fiction that you’ve seen a hundred times in telenovelas, feebly masked by calling it art. If it weren’t for Penelope, in a couple of years time, we’d be more likely to see this on morning housewives’ TV than on the CT2 Film Club.

Paradoxically, the only blot on the entire movie is that cult Mini chase through Turin at rush hour. The excellent tempo and textbook hyperbole that the movie had up until then slips into a series of forgettable scenes like out of a regular commercial. No people, just cars. This kills one of the movie’s main attributes, Caine’s charisma. That wouldn’t be so bad if the chase didn’t lack any hint of tension. And the bizarre idea of not having background music for the chase was largely responsible for that. But the stylish ending tipped the balance in favor of the movie in terms of the number of stars I decided to give it.

Gran Torino meets Indy in escapades à la Pixar. Some parts are great, but altogether it seems so inconsistent that it’s bothering. However, Carl is a really nice guy and his only blemish is that he’s not dubbed by Clint. The real “hero" and the dog do their CGI best to make this movie work. And they had to try hard, because this movie was moving alarmingly near to the shameful average (quite normal for Pixar).

If it weren’t for the initial Leone-style chapter, I would have no objections. But that chapter is there. And its matchless genius sheds a big shadow over the rest of the movie that it doesn’t manage to escape (with the exception of the exquisite tension build-up in the bar). But even so... To satisfy everybody’s great expectations with a few guys in uniforms blabbing away about bullshit for two and a half hours in about seven different interiors deserves applause alone. Simply wunderbar! P.S.: And I want Tarantino to make a regular spaghetti western at last. He’s been heading toward that all his career, so why avoid the unavoidable? P.P.S.: Having watched the Basterds for a third time in just a couple of weeks, really enjoying myself each time, I realized that full stars is more suitable, and so I changed it. ♫ OST score: 5/5

It’s got plenty of action, but also a few too many minutes. At least a small whiff of reality would have moved it up a league, but it's still the best episode of the series, which is quite sad in its way.

If the first half hadn't felt like a five-hour TV series edited down to half the running time for cinema release, it could have competed with even the best resistance films. This way it "only" ably seconded them.