Zíza

This film, with only five actors, is clearly built on dialogue, and I have to admit that some of it was really good. It just wasn't enough to keep me from getting bored. It's clear what the film wants to show (relationships, the year 1945, etc.), but again, it's not interesting and breathtaking enough for me to leave the cinema satisfied. In fact, I left a little disappointed with the ending, because I just don't like endings that "continue into nothingness". And it may very well have been simply an empty film; that idea detracts from it as well. For me, a weaker 3 stars. (maybe there were seven actors – the postman and then the voice of the boss, but those don’t really count...)

And there goes the end of Gokusen. Hooray, I made it through despite the failure of the two series. Once again, we have what we've already seen, but this time the movie starts elsewhere than in the school, and that made me very happy at the time, so I continued on with a smile. We have Yankumi's speeches again, which I kept skipping through, smiling and rolling my eyes, but otherwise it was fine. I really liked that the students from the second and third season showed up, and even some of the ones from the first one were here. I really like reunions like this. Did you enjoy the first Gokusen, then skipped through the next seasons? This will entertain you. Did you enjoy all the previous Gokusens? This one will thrill you. At one point, when Yankumi’s students (past, present) stepped in behind her, I thought: "Wow, she's sure got some Facebook friends..." And I also kind of felt like Japan was saying: "Teaching is a great thing, become a teacher today." Is there a shortage there? ^^ I must admit, I was waiting for Oguri and Narimiya the entire time, luckily Kamenashi made the wait more enjoyable... I liked the delinquents (the ones from the school) here more than the ones in the school uniforms, just adults. A nice touch.

"Gokusen 2 was a success, right?" – "Yes, boss." – "Okay, so how about doing a third one?" – "Great idea, boss." – "Excellent, bring the photocopier!" /// At some point in the third or fourth episode, I wondered if they were serious. Yup, they were. First of all, let me list what I liked about this series: the vice principal's expressions and that moment when they thought Yankumi was pregnant. It ends there. Many times worse than the second season, where at least there were good actors (who were watchable); this one just fell flat as well. Maybe it's also because I finished watching the second season three days ago, but I'm oversaturated. Absolutely. I debated for a long time whether to give this the garbage rating, but in the end I figured my disgust wasn't just from how they xeroxed the previous one. I was really offended by some moments, I just didn't take anything positive away from having seen the third season of Gokusen. Didn't like the previous season? Avoid this one. It was a complete waste of time for me.

Totally weepy movie, I was kind of expecting this ending, but that's okay. I kind of envy the siblings their relationship, my sister and I will never have one that nice, but maybe it's generated by the disease, if it hadn't broken out maybe they wouldn't all be so nice to each other... who knows. But there were moments that I didn't love – like a relationship between two sick people, I was just waiting for the grim reaper to come knocking. I was kind of thinking towards the end of the movie: "Die already." And when it happened, I didn't even cry, there were other things I thought were sadder. Somewhat of a weak 4 stars.

It started off promising, and even though it was animation from 1985, I liked it. But then it kind of went off the rails. A normal Japanese animated film turned into a Colombian soap opera. The family relationships, the twists and turns – it all started to undermine the film after about 35 minutes. The strong moments were buried under the piles of flashy contradictions and an overlong running time. Not to mention the fact that Japanese is apparently spoken all over the world, you find your family after all, you discover a Frenchman raised by Indians, you meet Mark Twain, you get One Piece... and you get to play a part in the Boshin War. About halfway through the movie, I was looking forward to the end credits, and it took a lot of work before I made it there... I must mention the music though, it was the only thing that was really worth it, even if it sounded a bit spastic at times. It was funny, not by design.

The movie has good moments, most of them probably when someone sings (with someone else), because the songs are great. Then the film also has a lot of dead spots, unnecessarily drawn out shots when it would have been best to move on from the scene already. But it's a "slice of life" movie, and I don't think anyone who likes this genre will be disappointed. And I'm sure everyone will have a good laugh at some part of it.

A sad repeat of the previous season. The only things I like here are the vice principal’s expressions and knowing so many of the actors. Otherwise it’s just boring, I've seen it all in the first season, it just gets choppy and repetitive. And I just don't like that. The originality of the first season is gone; I didn't laugh once while watching it (nor did I cry at the pretty faces, which is a blow to my pubertal heart). If I hear it one more time: "Who am I? I'm... I'm their homeroom teacher!" and I’ll have a stroke.

I'm sure I'd have liked it a lot more if I didn't have to watch it in two parts (after about an hour of watching it, my roommate couldn't take it and we had to turn it off and put on HIMYM); the next day the atmosphere was gone, so I kind of thought about it, rolled my eyes, and gave it 5 stars. But maybe it wasn't really there after all, it just ended in kind of a lackluster way, and at the exact moment the black guy called, I told myself he was going to go there and get slaughtered. Yup, and that’s exactly how it turned out... I would have given it the 4 stars for the psycho music, for Jack, who at the beginning looked like he was from the Bohnice Insane Asylum, and for that bloody hallway, but as I mentioned I closed one eye (and plugged up one nostril, but you don't need to know that) and was giving it the damn 5 stars. I guess it's because I live over a cat cemetery. Nah – I opened my eyes, looked again, and it's still just 4 stars.

We jump into the life of a bored young girl who doesn't know what she wants. Because she doesn't know, and is too lazy to do anything with her life, and too annoyed to even think about it, everything goes to shit. And nobody figured out that all she wanted was a good scratching behind the ear, they all wanted to scratch her someplace else. The main characters were flat and boring, like the whole movie in fact, so it was a pretty lost cause. It's clear what the bard wanted to say, so why couldn't the Czech bard say it differently? Why didn't she use another metaphor?

It's a nice conclusion to the series. If you haven't seen the series you certainly won't enjoy it as much as those who have, but you can still watch it (though it may be hard enough to understand their enthusiasm, their persistence). If you want to know if the boys made it to Koshien Stadium and if what Kawato promised at the beginning of the series comes true, definitely watch. Plus, Yusuke Yamamoto joins the familiar faces, and it wasn't until this movie that I finally saw him as a "guy" and realized he's not such a lost cause, plus he's the one who's going to be a baseball star soon... ^^ It's not much different from the series, just not as much fighting (almost none at all, actually) and the focus is entirely on baseball, which is fine, it's a movie about the guys who play it :-))