Marigold

The course of the flight: the first third full of kerosene fumes of audiovisual brilliance, humor as black as a box and the promises of "character" drama. Then the flaps get stuck and the descent begins: slow dialogues, underdeveloped characters, a faint "investigative" drama that is displaced by the image of a decomposing protagonist letting the viewer in - even though Denzel is first-class swollen and he is a loser, it's not something that will invest you in the story. Instead, we get into subtle turbulences of predictability. However, the unraveling is not in vain, it has an edge and a charge... which the film then sticks into the ground with a lemonade conclusion, which actually breaks the whole effort to remove the hero aspect and the moral ambiguity of the story. Every sermon needs at least one improved sinner, something Švejk already knew, but when someone starts screaming at the altar, it is not yet a sign of God's enlightenment. Rather first-class amateurs, in this case a showy sniff at the audience, who like exemplary "self-criticism". From my point of view, it blunts all the blades that Flight 93 manages to hold on to. Nevertheless, it’s a sympathetic film which, thanks to a few juicy moments for me (apart from the first forty minutes or so, for example, the character of John Goodman and Zemeckis' still elegant direction) stays in the safe flight level between three and four stars.

OK, let the main character, written somewhere between Wayne and Eastwood, play a guy with a heavy Germanic accent. In more emotionally tense scenes, he resembles a bulldozer accidentally parked at a bicycle show and makes jokes about being an immigrant. Place under it the soundtrack, which partly springs up in heavy bass offensives, sometimes pays modernity, sometimes shifts to (probably ironic) classics, and often also the western ancestors. And let a Korean film it all, so that it sometimes resembles a border western, sometimes series crap about Texas rangers, sometimes an 80's action film and sometimes modern (I still can't decide whether the überdigital cuts in some of the action were a stylish intention or not). A film is most likely to be made that works best in segments where no one is acting or talking. The problem is that there are very few of those segments, and also the fact that Arnie doesn't act in comic / dramatic scenes any better in the new millennium than in his golden years - and there are very few scenes where he can give his sarcastic one-liners. The significant difference from the eighties is that the crowds will no longer be rushing to go see it. It's a pity - the last The Expendables showed the path that these old tanks can still go down. It just takes more exaggeration, self-reflection and fewer attempts to "make character". During the final fight on the digital bridge, I couldn't decide whether to feel amusement or slight regret over that anachronism. A bit of both in the end, this is The Last Stand.

Super 8 in the role of a powerful cult artifact and a gateway between worlds, a stray member of the band MAYHEM in the role of Mr. Bubák... Although is once again a case of recycling all of the known ingredients, their connection is not at all a forgettable and stupid. The motif of a writer obsessed with his former fame, who sells his soul and betrays the principles (we all know what come next...), the motif of a film that "drinks life from creatures", a sound component oscillating between an industrial and a radio breakdown on a Turkish minaret... It's too bad that Derrickson has to put few cheap "now the whole movie theatre will scream" moments in there, and that he does not just work with the long nervous atmosphere that escalates so beautifully. The motif for serial murder, which allows the viewer to watch the film in a way other than as "pure sinister adrenaline", is not at all useless. At least the "mystery" (no matter how ridiculous) managed to hook me solidly. As I don't tend to like US horror movies in general, this one is pretty good.

This is called "losing out". Its name unmistakably puts it in the wave of Nordic crime series, as well as the concept of the detective as a lonely desperate man who finds himself on the edge of existential ruin. But - although I like Sedláček's lethargic manner of conducting dialogues, this time it sometimes completely misses the effect and harms the whole. Due to the eternal "half-assed dialogues", the detective has a pace like a horse's dose of sedatives. The music is an absolute mess, which is entirely out of it. Why does the same music sound under three completely different scenes? Why is the "killer watching the detective" motif accompanied by a piano etude as if from the playlist of a Czech hypermarket? It completely kills otherwise praiseworthy attempts to work with the framing of the shot and the environment (for example, the shot from the top of the detective's shoulder in the middle of luxury cars is funny and there are more such flashes in the film). I enjoyed a few moments in which Sedláček incorporates insignificant detail into the escalation of a scene (the scene with a rotating wooden ball, etc.). The cast is good, the actors act quite civilly, but the dialogues are traditionally weak - the best moments between the characters tend to be wordless and the strongest person in the whole story is the alcohol-devastated enfant terrible of the choir, Martin Stránský. Ženy, které nenávidí muže lacks the legendary measure and feeling - what sounds natural at the peak of a Nordic crime series and has a dark emotional vibe is therefore too flat and too exaggerated. There is a lack of tension and a twist, but also "pathological" magic. On the positive side, with the exception of the natural in the role of league hockey player, it does without unnecessary awkwardness and visually it looks quite solid. But these are just ingredients - the whole is very far from functioning. In order to function, it would need something like a script and not this mountain of diligently copied and poorly slapped-together motifs. Has anyone explained to the screenwriter that this type of detective story should not lack something like a "false suspect", so that the search has at least the minimal tension?

Typical Svoboda, whose prickle for a spineless rotten time, where crime grows into politics and the world is teeming with deviants and crooks, can be felt. Just like the attempt to film it in a modern way, according to the notes of a contemporary American detective story. But even if the shot "squares", it actually has zero benefit for the narrative - usually it's not very understandable why we have to watch the shot from two / three perspectives, when the view is not used in any way (except for the scene of revealing the driver's identity and quite elegant “placing" of information at police meetings. The script is very weak, the attempt for an open end with a bitter undertone completely fades out. The actors alternate decent moments with incomprehensible wooden declamation, which is dominated by Kňažko's theatrical performance. Although Domina tries to look realistic and harsh, the film certainly can't be watched in any way other than as an awkward conglomeration of motifs and tones. It's shot better than usual for a Czech TV thriller, but paradoxically it feels all the more helpless.

A film folk haunting novel that perfectly exploits the conventions of Gothic horror and the Victorian aesthetics of ghost stories (the author of the book, Susan Hill, is an expert on them). Watkins chose the ultimate digital look, which is sometimes gorgeous (color contrasts and delicate work with light in neat interiors), and sometimes very artificial and implausible (especially the modified exteriors). The atmosphere is nice, and blaming it for its predictability is nonsense - the film is a de facto stylistic exercise with clear rules that need to be followed. The inclination to have cheap jump scares bothered me a bit, but those long walks with a candle darkened house are dense. In addition, Radcliffe acting like a lost frightened puppy can believed without difficulty. Pleasantly old-fashioned, from the veil to the ankle boots.

Something that completely passed me by in Pan's Labyrinth then caught up with me in The Orphanage. The fragile tension between the children's world, intimate family drama, and irrational belief in the world "beyond our world" works brilliantly here, not least because Bayon evokes the atmosphere convincingly, lightly, and with the necessary portion of winking at the "decadence" of this somewhat Victorian story. Sometimes things get out of hand luxuriously (the episode with the grandmother who gets it in the face, the frantic search for the son, accompanied by cuts on a stormy sea - isn't the film Spanish?), but it’s mostly very moderate and clever - the slow camera movement works much better than sharp cuts. I fell in love with The Orphanage, including the ending, which should in fact have been edited down a bit.

I'm amazed by the design of the disaster - it's a demonstration of what a good filmmaker can do without an army of computers, only by working with perspective and shooting methods. For me, a completely equal affair with the sinking of the ship in Pi and his life smeared with mud and blood. Otherwise - I'm always wondering if the "real story" is just an alibi to excuse the usual schemes and clichés, or if the filmmaker can draw more than a few notorious lessons from the disaster about the fragility of man and the power of humanity (the last one who really captivated me was Danny Boyle and his rock climbing amputation). For me, in key moments The Impossible slips into uncovered exploitation, from which I soon lost all pleasure (sometimes I hesitated whether the tension was still meant seriously - vomiting of eyelashes and blood, which inadvertently looks like a B-movie horror scene). I want to see something more than just what I know from documentaries and the news, even if it's dressed in a masterful form. But the talk about the stars and the melodramatic passing are as if from a different sea than the realistic wave of dirt that so brutally tore me down against my will at the beginning. For Bayon, I actually have words of respect, but he really should be careful about the innocent submission to the expectations of the "genre". And he should try digging deeper, because this film is actually just "disaster tourism", where everything is solved by harmonious love... and good insurance.

The problem of the first series is: 1. that the concept wasn’t handled well, and 2. the non-establishment of the form. My first point roughly means that twenty episodes amount to so many twists and false clues that in episode 17, it seems that the film crew also starts getting arrested. The detectives act like affected lunatics for whom the blame stems from a single (albeit indirect) piece of evidence. The problem, after all, is that some "sidetracks" just give the impression of purposeful retardation of the plot, and moreover, in that amount of deceptive ballast, one begins to become a little isolated from the details of the case. Point two means that the first about 3 episodes look like a typical television detective story with an unattractive visual. Only the arrival of the experienced Henrik Ruben Genz makes it an interesting and dark spectacle with an imaginative use of "psychological" details. Otherwise, I'm satisfied - the idea with three parallel levels is quite good, although the family storyline sometimes fails to go anywhere. A huge positive is the cast, led by the incredibly charismatic Lars Mikkelsen (oh those family genes) and a lot of characters who, in their indistinctness, acquire typically Nordic contours of clenched and obsessed weirdos (this is especially true of the central duo). I simply appreciate The Killing as a bold attempt to show the investigation as a drama full of mistakes and personal tragedies. The ending is flawless, not so much because it is surprising, but rather because it perfectly respects anti-happy endings.

In some ways, Lincoln uncomfortably reminded me of last year's sensational The Help. Probably due to the film’s ostentatious clinging to the fact that black and white, truth and falsehood have no shades. Spielberg made a film that reminded me of Eliad's concept of an absolute epic time. It is not a historical drama. It's a myth. A myth in which politicians disintegrate into enlightened progressivists, hysterical obscurantists and spineless "hesitators". A myth in which we do not ask what motivates the main character to such a determined attitude, what drives him forward, because the main character himself is the absolute truth (although it suggests a certain internal ruggedness in the film, the film never lets it prevail and disrupt the state aura). Lincoln could not have wished for a better form than Daniel Day Lewis imprinted on him - slow, deliberate, genial, infinitely kind, yet convinced and convincing to the bone. Spielberg treats the character with striking iconicity - the way he places him in the shots, the way he uses the meaning-creating light, only confirms to us that Lincoln the mortal is not in front of us, but rather Lincoln the icon. When the president dies, Steven draws a baroque shot in which life is darkness and death is light ("He has gone to Eternity"). The Hagiography of the Saint, including the structure of the narrative - an exposition revealing the world in imbalance / enlightenment through dream / rectification / martyrdom (something that has worked well since the Middle Ages, through messianism, to this day). I'm not making fun of it, I’m not questioning it. I've seen other deified lumens with a far greater degree of dilettantism, and it does not bother me in Lincoln. But it also doesn't affect me in any way. This is a film-ritual for believers, whether "Lincoln" or "Spielberg" lovers, who will compete in praising how narratively and formally brilliant it is (and it indeed is). I do not deny the film the visual captivation of classical art, nor the narrative prowess with which Spielberg brings humor to the leather framework of parliamentary debates and skillfully alternates spatial-temporal plans. But the film is cold, simplistic in some respects, avoiding real problems... I have to smile a little: when Lincoln bribes the Democrats to help him out, we can agree that he's doing the right thing (because he represents the truth, "it's a long time ago", and moreover it's filmed as a comedy). But when the protagonist of The Ides of March does the same thing, it's disgusting pragmatism, dirt, disgusting politics, and American critics are writing about a film that today's America doesn't need. Today's America certainly needs Lincoln and a solid granite myth. As a spectator, I don't need to see anything like this, even if it has a more self-virtuoso form. It is, in my view, self-affirming ideological boredom that defends any doubts by eradicating them with the schemes seen a hundred times, to which the elite actors' faces and the proven structure of the narrative give the impression of uniqueness. But such a film is not able to offer me anything important for life, just a yawning abyss of distance from the perfectly coherent and closed world of myth. With all due respect, Mr. Spielberg.