lamps

The simple concept works perfectly and it actually doesn’t matter that it lacks thematic or intellectual depth, because it’s just satire that builds the horror relationship between hunter and victim in a more explicit way than it’s usual. There’s no escape from the game and, fortunately, it’s sufficiently engaging that you can follow those characters until the end with no problem. The psychology, of course, is of the cheaper kind, but I have often projected myself into those situations and I can say that the creators never offended my imagination and participation. This is how cheap, intimate horror should look like. 75%

The idea is good and I can’t complain much about the pace of the second half, but a film that wants to rely on how characters behave in an unpredictable and confusing situation should never allow those characters to be so unlikeable and dumb (at the beginning the tenant has to behave weirdly so everything will hold together). The horror is satisfactory and the direction isn’t bad, but I didn’t care at all for the fragile relationships. This needs to be worked out better. 60%

I never thought that the music of Raiders of the Lost Ark would sound even better in the scenes with the biggest hotshot of the universe, who spends the entire film jumping trampolines, chopping stones with his bare hands and breaking grumpy plush animals in half. Thank you Çetine İnançi for your unprecedented courage to ignore copyrights and also for the incredibly extravagant, chaotic and haphazard direction of your “own” story (and I’m also nodding at you, Cüneyt Arkıne). I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Whenever I heard any of Williams’s tunes, the level of guilty pleasure was lethal, making all that stupid stuff almost hellishly irresistible and awesome.

I will be unusually fair and tell you that somewhere in the archives of unimaginably bad creators there might be even more amateurish stuff than this, but I don’t quite believe it myself. Birdemic is hands down the worst film I’ve ever watched, which is also aided by the fact that James Nguyen takes this as a very serious environmental message, even though he devalues himself with every filmmaking element and choice. I understand why so many people will give this an ironic 5* rating, I also had a lot of fun, but rather in a constant amazement at the extremes of monstrosity that filmmaking can be taken to (and I’m not even speaking about the special effects). It is must-see stuff for sure, but for me also the most deserved 0% in the history of cinema.

Or Boo!, I can’t decide. Either way, thanks to this fascinating experience I can finally see everything the concept of “cult” can mean in the world of cinema. And a extraterrestrial conqueror in a gorilla costume wearing a second hand helmet, who with the snap of a finger can defeat the armies of all nations, but goes everywhere by foot, and who’s obviously sweating more than a nerd of a first date, is a cult of cosmic proportions. It was fun all the way until the grand finale.

It’s stupid, but self-awareness in a film has rarely been so much fun. Clooney was also cool already in his younger years and Karen Mistal was very natural as the most perfect woman in the universe (though, with her looks, it wasn’t too hard for her). A clear midnight classic.

It was disappointing the first time and I really don’t know if there’ll be a second. The atmosphere is certainly mesmerising and the concept is original, but that dreamy and muddled narration felt contrived and almost too detached at times. Maybe it’s a great lesson on how to design a fictional and fantastic world, but the dynamics weren’t fun and, compared with the equally old and somewhat similar The NeverEnding Story, the story never drew me in. Maybe next time. 65%

Even though I’m not sure what to think of it myself, I dare call Zardoz a visionary film worthy of attention. It is possible (and likely) that at the beginning you will start laughing and change the channel, but I was enchanted in an unique way – there’s lots weird stuff going on and many of the scenes look like a more expensive porno with a dominant stallion in a gay outfit, but Boorman shows his qualities as filmmaker and creates a lavishly immersive world with a shell of cheapness that hides lots of interesting ideas and a confident vision of the future, which after the climax doesn’t look as stupid as it did at first. I was really curious about how things would turn out, and the final scene convinced me to follow this cult carefully – without such original flights of fancy by talented directors, cinema would be a lot more boring, as it would be without Sean Connery, who acted with grace even wearing the funniest costume imaginable. But I can understand every rating, this weird stuff between trashy satire and inspirational philosophical vision of humankind warrants such diversity. For me, 75%, but it’s hard to say now whether it will mature, or rot.

It has many good things and I admire the courage of the creators who approached such heavy material already at the beginning of the 1950s. During the first two acts I even told myself that I was watching one of the best sci-fi films of its time, where the tension doesn’t rely on cheap circus attractions, but on a premise that generates a lot of empathy. That focus on the complex human factor in unprecedented situations is worthy of praise and is the base of strong motifs, but they are scattered in clumps in a short runtime and lack a coherent anchor. Emmerich could do wonders with this material, he knows how to work with characters on a chessboard like few others – provided the screenwriters keep in check his theatrical attempts at humour and physical nonsense like, among others, when a giant star is approaching Earth and people escape in rockets at the last moment, unaffected by gravity or heat. It’s far from bad and it does tell something about people, but, even considering the era it comes from, it suffers from an untapped potential. Anyway, after this solid appetiser, I’m seriously looking forward to seeing Roland sending the Moon against Mother Earth. 65%

Another bulletproof classic that has eluded me for too long and for whose review this format is not nearly enough. Once again, it’s admirable how Wyler can speak with images with relative simplicity, letting the story be told not so much by words as by actions and their consequences. The relationships among the main characters are very clear, and they lead to an inevitable conflict in the style of the classic westerns, but the presence of the gentlemen of the new age, in the figure of the sailor played by Gregory Peck, makes it unpredictable. Thematically, it is a patient clash of honour (greed) and morality represented on several levels: the aforementioned sailor McKay, who performs honourable heroic deeds in secret because they’re incompatible with his morality (they are a matter of honour only for the tough men of the wild west); Leech, the loyal henchman, who mostly cares about honour, while McKay’s moral justice starts falling on him only after their secret and agreed on fight; Hannassey, the leader of the “enemies”, who has both codes ingrained and, as the tough cowboy he is, realises that times are changing and that those long festering conflicts must be resolved honourably and morally (and, of course, he is heavily influenced by the active power-broker McKay). All this converges in the timeless tale about the mixing of different cultures and the rules of different eras, and the viewer comfortably follows a seemingly traditional western with traditionally assigned roles and conflicts that actually undermines the morals and honour of the wild west from the very beginning. And all this also relates to the unexpected style choice, where Wyler shows those traditional western motifs like horse chases, fistfights and the final duel from a great distance, or even hides them from the viewer, all in order to support their demystification. To this day, it remains a perfect example of how well a Hollywood story can tell what is expected from it, while at the same time (but fully intentionally) undermine it between the lines. Once Upon a Time in the West perhaps does it better and in a more revolutionary way (it’s also the product of a different creative stage), but Big Country, as a more classic case of genre subversion, is nonetheless fascinating. 90%