gudaulin

It's been ages, but it feels like yesterday. I remember the feeling of tension and excitement at the premiere of Alien. I don't mean the usual scary or action scenes, but the feeling you get as if you were in a trance from encountering something that greatly exceeds the usual genre standards and newly defines the concept of quality in that genre. Since then, I've had similar feelings a few more times, but I could probably count them on one hand. After a long hiatus, I felt that chill again with Sicario. The soundtrack is one you won't forget. You feel like you're sitting on a payload of plastic explosives, where you can't see the timer, but you perceive the relentless ticking of passing seconds. At the back of your head, you have a barrel pressed against you, and the safety switch clicks off in silence. Superlatives can be used to describe the cinematography, wherein the camera quickly descends from beautiful panoramic shots of nature to the road, where the viewer becomes part of a nervously anticipating automobile convoy, waiting for a surprise attack. The editing combines details and entities interspersed with large panoramas. While watching, I constantly felt overwhelming pressure, like a champagne bottle's cork. The director creates tension by allowing the viewer, like his protagonist, to stumble in uncertainty and only providing information in necessary doses. Sicario is a raw, dirty, and morally ambiguous thriller that only superficially conforms to the usual formula of action films. Instead of noble ideals, personal scores are settled here, and cynicism dominates. As one of the anti-heroes says, if we can't get 20% of Americans to stop injecting, snorting, and swallowing drugs, drugs won't disappear, and our goal must be to maintain the simplest market structure. Interesting agreements can be made with one major supplier. The film shows the sad infinity of the struggle between repressive state forces, equipped with greater powers and budgets and effectively evading control, and organized crime on the other hand, which is not bound by any rules and becomes increasingly brutal. It is a world where the elimination of one criminal group leads to the strengthening of another. For me, this is so far the most powerful film experience of 2015, and I have only two criticisms: Neither side of the conflict embraces armed shootouts in long tunnels dug between Mexico and the United States. Professionals are well aware that bullets bouncing off rock can incredibly deviously change direction, often finding their own side as a target. And those two poor souls in the car full of drugs could hardly have expected the police to work their way to them during a minute-long shootout. Despite the above-mentioned criticisms, I wholeheartedly give it the highest rating. This is a film that hit me hard. Overall impression: 95%.

For fans of the film giant, it is a duty, and for others, it is an interesting look at one directorial legend. The documentary is far from impartial, it gives significant space to Welles' admirers and collaborators, led by his daughter; after all, Orson Welles himself appears several times on the television screen. The film thus becomes part of the legend that Orson intensely built and, to be honest, dedicated more energy to than any film he worked on. It is the story of a genius filmmaker who defied the studio system, and it mercilessly took revenge on him and prevented Welles from further work in Hollywood. It includes the image of a versatile artist, a brilliant visionary, and an experimenter who had a key role in the development of cinema. Orson undoubtedly had talent and the courage for innovations, but alongside that, he also had a huge ego which was the main obstacle to his collaboration with studios. The feeling of his own exceptionalism was always more important to him than commercial success. His self-centeredness, unwillingness to compromise, and refusal to collaborate with anyone who wasn't worthy of a genius (which was the majority) led to many failures, where, for various reasons, the director did not complete most of his films and was unnecessarily often considered a chronic troublemaker. However, this part of his personality remained hidden from documentary viewers. Overall impression: 65%.

This is a film that lives off its reputation. I like Deray, but cannot put Borsalino on display, despite the film having high ratings given the nostalgia and the presence of big movie stars. It's not just a matter of Deray's inexperience, but likely also his great ambitions. The film simply doesn't work and it's inconsistent. It is very evident that Deray tried to make a crime comedy, but the humor doesn't appeal, at least to me. Borsalino is strangely positioned between genres and it is possible to consider it as a prime example of when the chemistry between the main actors doesn't work. It's as if Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon were filming completely different movies. The contrast between their acting styles, which could have been potentially interesting, instead ends up sinking Borsalino. One star is for the cast, one for the backdrop of Marseille in the 1930s, and everything else is bad. The sequel Borsalino and Co. is also not a stellar piece, but genre-wise it is much cleaner. Overall impression: 45%.

Louis is a young advertising expert who has the misfortune of being stuck working at a company that doesn't even care about advertising. He feels unappreciated, but he doesn't have enough will and courage to slam the door. An unexpected change in the manager's position provides a chance for quick professional advancement. However, career advancement means that two sharply different characters will meet. One is an experienced director as a dictator, pedant, bulldozer, and manipulator, with a strong personality who desires dominance and patiently transforms his surroundings to his liking. The other is a young man, a diligent but characteristically and spiritually shallow weakling, who looks up to his boss with respect as his guru. There is no real struggle actually happening. Louis is gradually dismantled, absorbed, and becomes dependent on his superior. After the boss travels overseas, he feels betrayed, and abandoned, and can't exist meaningfully without him. The film creates a certain tension, an expectation of things to come. The resolution is ultimately quite banal, and the concept could have been worked with much more radically. However, the moderate ending allows the film to stay within the realm of reality - it is convincing. The message is not particularly profound, but Louis' story expresses a more general truth about people. Parts of the population like being under the shadow of great authority, willingly adapting, and seeking protection from the uncertainty of an unstable world. Here we can look for the cause of the popularity of some authoritarian politicians and regimes. In the character of the experienced actor veteran Michel Piccoli, the film gained an ideal representative of the company boss. Calm, focused, fatherly when needed, and otherwise entertaining, self-confident, and unpredictable, he weaves his web and knows well that his prey will not escape him. Overall impression: 75%.

Among the types of cinema are uncomplicated entertainment, formal beauty, or noble sentiment. Towelhead is a representative of another kind - provocative cinema. No, it's not about punk or rebellion, but rather about breaking certain taboos and established social clichés. If American films are not accustomed to dealing with the sexuality of 13-year-old girls - at most as victims of abuse - then the average viewer will probably be surprised by the main protagonist as a teenager who wants sex and recognition from the adult world. However, representatives of the adult world do not behave like they are out of a textbook either. The result is a strong and ambiguous drama that defies trends and expectations. To not just praise the film, apart from a very successful sexual dimension, the film also includes a dimension of racial conflict, but it presents it in a quite conventional way compared to the rest, thus having a less powerful impact on the audience. Ball's film seems underrated to me, but I don't have any issues giving it 5 stars. It is really good, although not everyone will be able to digest it. Overall impression: 90%.

An honestly-filmed blockbuster, and one of those rare cases where the creation of a blockbuster is justified. The Martian tries to appear serious, but you won't find any stargates or, heaven forbid, lightsabers in it. Ridley Scott works on a realistic depiction of the environment and tries to be technologically convincing. In a sense, it is Scott's return to his roots - this is how Prometheus should have been and then it wouldn't have ended up as a silly pop culture mishmash. The captivating beauty of the landscape of the red planet, endless space, and a lonely hero in the midst of nothingness. Thanks to its visual aspects, the film has a captivating atmosphere and the director skillfully doses tension. However, I did not actually feel any enthusiasm. The stranded astronaut is, in fact, a skillful follower of Ferdy the Ant. He goes through the story too confidently, as if he were always in control. Add a few lines, and he would appear like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. At the moment when Mark takes a piece of metal from a shattered wound, one would expect a storm of juicy curses, and, at other times a wave of despair, doubt, and confusion. It was simply lacking a piece of humanity. Matt Damon does not act badly, nor does anyone else, but there was something missing to make me relate to the characters. Maybe they seemed too clean, almost textbook perfect. The runtime is just right, and Scott knows when to cut the shot and not bore the audience. Americans, as usual, show that they are the best, but this time in an acceptable form. And the Russians have been replaced by the Chinese - clear proof of whom Hollywood considers the second superpower of today. I'm not crazy about The Martian, but overall, thumbs up, the film has the potential to become a sci-fi classic. Overall impression: 85%.

A documentary that, by means of its resources, speaks about today's Iran in the same way as A Separation. By the way, it also dares to be very open and even audacious, considering the strict Iranian censorship. Overall impression: 90%.

The individual ingredients are quite tasty - for example, Louise Bourgoin, who is not only attractive but also a solid actress. Fortunately, it does not take itself seriously, so it is lightened with reasonable jokes and oneliners. There are a few decent scenes in it, but the screenplay is an incredible mishmash into which Besson stuffed a living pterodactyl, an army of revived mummies, secret services, the Titanic - basically anything you can think of, and together it is such a mess that it insults one's intellect. However, if you approach it as mindless B-movie entertainment without any higher goals, it can still be amusing in its own way. I didn't understand at all what Luc Besson intended, because I can accuse him of all imaginable sins, but he is usually a cunning businessman who knows what he's doing, and here I had the feeling for the first time that he had gone mad. However, I had the opportunity to later read the comic book "The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec," which served as the basis for the film, and now I understand. The French comic is an incredibly entertaining affair. It's simply a smart and funny homage to pulp, where what doesn't make sense in the film has order and style in literary form. My view of the film hasn't changed, as it should stand on its own, not just in relation to knowledge of the source material, and it failed to do so. Overall impression: 25%.

I have a very distant relationship with boxing, and I would never believe that I would give a boxing-themed film five stars. Fortunately, this film is far from just being about the sport. The screenwriter managed to connect the concentration camp theme with a peculiar relationship and a sports match in an excellent way. The excellent performances of Štefan Kvietik and Manfred Krug as fighters in the ring and opposing positions of the concentration camp boss and prisoner are outstanding. The black-and-white image suits this film, and for its time, it is one of the highlights of Czechoslovak cinema. I overlook its minor flaws; this is a timeless film about human pride, responsibility, and bravery. Overall impression: 95%.

The opening scene at the crematorium enticed me with its black humor, and the following minutes of the owner running out with his employees reminded me of a recently published case in Italy, where the boss sent his sheep on a company-wide vacation during which he relocated the factory to Poland. It seemed like a great ride and I expected to consider giving the highest rating, but after the disgruntled female employees voted for their boss's execution in the café, the film took a strange absurd turn that it couldn't shake off until the closing credits. While the first ten minutes suited me perfectly, endless moments of genuine suffering followed. I would have given in the Boo! rating but I realize that Jesus would define suffering completely differently. I just didn't connect with the anarchistic duo's style of humor. Overall impression: 15% for the intro.