EvilPhoEniX

A pretty nice movie with Mark Wahlberg going on an adventure race in the jungle where he meets a dog and becomes a full-fledged member of the team. I'm a bit disappointed that the race itself lacks any sort of typical survival parameters, there was no significant thrilling obstacle apart from the cable car, and the whole thing is mostly about the doggie's relationship with Marky, which can stir up some minor emotions at the end, but I won't scratch for a higher rating. Nice but ordinary. 6/10.

Teenage silliness with a fresh idea involving two dead guys who are detectives solving supernatural cases and various ghosts, witches and other monsters. I was quite looking forward to it, I'm just disappointed that it's conceived in a teenage style. It's kind of a combination of Wednesday, Ghostbusters and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, leaning only lightly on the horror theme, but more darkness and and R-rating would have done it a lot more good. It also deals with a lot of relationship and LGBT stuff, which I'm not a big fan of, and it lacks stronger characters and a better developed script. The best episode was #3 with the time loop with a father murdering his family for several years. From episode 5 onwards I watched it purely out of obligation and wasn't really enjoying it. I'm not the target audience. 5/10.

Shogun is definitely a revelation in the series field this year and should be seen by everyone. Until the 5th episode I was sure of a 5 star rating, but then my great enthusiasm started to wane as my faith in some epic battle started to fade away, and it ended up being very intimate. The series has spectacular sets, great performances – Hirojuki Sanada is awesome, Mariko is perhaps the most beautiful Asian ever, and Aijin is also great. It has meticulous dialogues, great atmosphere, strong emotions (episode 9 is probably the strongest) and it's also quite suspenseful. The series is actually flawless in all respects except for the lack of action sequences, and I can't forgive that because the samurai didn't just conduct political intrigues, they also cut each other and there was obviously a budget here, so they could have easily crammed a 15 minute battle into those 10 hours. Considering the whole 4th episode was dedicated to cannons (there was even the best gore scene of the series), it's a shame that they didn’t use them once more during the series and the ending just disappointed me because nothing was resolved properly. I'm sorry because there won't be a samurai movie or series this expansive for quite a while. I still enjoyed it, but there was no ejaculation. 8/10.

I think in this duel of the daughters of horror greats, Shyamalan vs Cronenberg, the winner is decided. The daughter didn't didn’t do a very good job and delivered a sort of talky drama that cuts to thriller at the end. I don't think daddy will give her any praise for this one because it was boring as fuck. It's got a pretty interesting theme that could have turned out well in more capable hands, but the acting is pretty bad, the pacing is very slow and there's definitely nothing satisfying at the end, where some gore could have come in handy. This was quite painful. 3.5/10.

The first season had the more attractive setting of Hawaii, not that Sicily isn't beautiful, but the Hawaiian exoticism had its charm. Yet I have to say that the second season has more interesting characters, better plot twists and overall I enjoyed it a lot more. Of the familiar faces, I liked Theo James, Aubrey Plaza and the return of Jennifer Coolidge. Simona Tabasco as the hooker was an instant crush, and for the biggest likable character there's Will Sharpe,  I felt quite sorry for him, that relationship was pretty toxic. You really care about the characters, their development and their relationships are very well written, you hate the opening theme song of the first season and then love it and the final twist is really very good. Very entertaining, gripping and addictive, I'm glad I gave it a chance. 8/10.

I once suffered through Rose Glass' Saint Maud, but I was looking forward to this one thanks to the stylish trailer. It's okay and I'm very much between 3 and 4 stars, but I'm going to be stricter in the end because the plot is pretty straightforward with no significant changes throughout, and Kristen Stewart is not a pretty sight to look at. Luckily the testosterone-soaked Katy O’Brian was the best character in the whole movie, I could see her as a final girl in some kind of monster movie. The film has a nice retro look of the American backwoods, a nice lesbian romance with R-rated erotic scenes, a sleazy Ed Harris, and there were some corpses, so I liked it, I enjoyed it, but I was expecting a bit more. The bizarre fantasy ending didn't quite work for me. 65%

Sébastien Vaniček and his instant ticket to the A-Horror League. I'm gonna go give out prizes, because this is where history is made. So Vaniček made a dream debut (right on the lines of the recent successful debutants like Robert Eggers, Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, Zach Cregger), the best spider horror film of all time (it's quite funny that the previous king is already 30 years, Arachnophobia), kicked off this year's French wave and at the same time made the best horror film of the year – no one could ask for a better way to start. Whether Infested will be dethroned by the new Alien or Nosferatu at the end of the year is another matter, but until then it can enjoy the pedestal merrily. And now for the film. After a long time, I experienced very uncomfortable feelings with horror, and since ghosts and demons don't do anything to me, spiders as a real evil definitely had an effect. The housing estates of the French ghetto evokes an interesting atmosphere in itself, you don’t get to really form much of a relationship with the characters but that didn't bother me. The craftsmanship is excellent and once it gets going, it really is a spider atmospheric hell crammed with jump-scares like Sam Raimi's Drag me to Hell, and I twitched along decently (I also praise the aptly chosen musical score!). Admittedly, it got more intense as the spiders got smaller, but even the big ones had something going for them – that's where the CGI came in handy. It's a bit marred by the ending, I was expecting a bigger carnage, the mass battle spiders vs cops was over too quickly for my taste, and the whole thing ends quite hastily – I could have easily managed 20 minutes more – but these are minor flaws in the beauty of a film that is born once every three decades. Anyone who doesn't appreciate that is an arrogant scumbag and an enemy of the state and me. 9/10.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, from Radio Silence, deliver their tried and tested recipe once again. Why change something that works. Here we have a group of thieves who kidnap a little girl and are tasked with guarding her for 24 hours in a huge mansion, but what seems like an easy job soon will cost them their lives – they have no idea whose daughter Abigail is. A very likeable cast (I enjoyed the original introduction to the characters, where Melissa Barrera uses details to identify everyone like Sherlock Holmes), the big surprise is Kevin Durand, who is a very funny insert throughout the film, and it was nice to see Dan Stevens as well. The film has a very fast pace, nice visuals, effective jokes, it's decently suspenseful, there a few twists and turns at the end, and it's also decently gory (the house ends up painted in blood from the roof to the basement, so evil can't be pissed) The final explosion was literally a gore epic!!! Too bad the atmosphere doesn't work much and some of the vampire rules change to serve the script, but never mind that, it's the cool ride that they promised, and delivered. Quite possibly the best Vampire movie of recent years? And if you doubt about it, give me a better choice. 8/10.

What The Bear is to restaurants, The White Lotus is to hotels. Both are in the industry for me, so it's definitely an issue that's very close to my heart, plus it's all set in Hawaii and it's nicely exotic. But it's more drama than comedy, though some there are some entertaining black-humored. The cast is great the clash of the Hollywood boobies with Alexandra Daddario and Sydney Sweeney is real eye-candy, the director was very crazy, the twists and turns and the nicely escalated relationships on all sides are good, and who ends up being in the casket, I really didn't expect. I was expecting a more bizarre choice of characters though, after all, I know from the hotel business that you run into all sorts of weirdos, and these ones were even normal compared to reality, and they also could have pointed out the guests' complaints more, but otherwise I'm cool, it flows very well. 75%

The most praised film of last year from South Korea is finished and it is a very important historical work for country. 1979 was a very dark time in Seoul, where a coup was carried out after the assassination of the president, with various military factions fighting for power over the Korean state. It's a dense atmospheric political-war piece that will grip even the uninitiated viewer. There are two top actors on both sides of the barricade, with Jeong-min Hwang playing the bastard who wants to take over the state and Woo-seong Jeong the good guy who wants to stop him. I'm not a big fan of political thrillers, but this one has such a sinister and uncomfortable atmosphere woven throughout, where the tension builds and builds incredibly, that I almost didn't breathe. Top craftsmanship, top actors, top dialogue, top atmosphere and there was some action (not much of that though), and all the intrigue and power struggles are rendered very believably. A scary and crazy night on 12.12.1979, where the ending quite pissed me off. 8/10.