D.Moore

Someone wanted to write a story “like Tom Clancy", but he wasn’t able to do it. Crimson Tide has a barren, unsurprising script, but it's well filmed and, as always, the perfect Gene Hackman plays in it, which makes it all worth seeing. The character of Denzel Washington did not impress me in any way, and I could write the same about the music of Hans Zimmer, because (this time) it is nothing special. A slightly above-average submarine film - about on the level of U-571.

We haven’t had this good of a submarine film since K-19. It's 100% impressive depressing drama... Especially when it gives the sailors and their families little hope that everything can turn out good after all. And you wish for it with them. However, probably every viewer knows how the events really played out, and that's why those scenes are so strong. Admittedly, I didn't expect much from The Command, but I ended up sitting in the movie theatre and not moving, filled with tension and feeling pretty miserable during the end credits. It is shot great (the directing and camera use the claustrophobic environment to the maximum and, for example, the quest for oxygen is unforgettable), Alexander Desplat's music did not disappoint and for me, the unknown actors - Colin Firth or Max von Sydow - give very believable performances.

I finally saw it. And it's perfect. Clint Eastwood, as he has a habit of doing, doesn't get emotion from the viewer with some tacky special effects, and represents one of the strangest pairs of the film screen - a prisoner and a youngster who couldn't be more different, but at the same time they have a lot in common. I especially liked how the film isn't afraid to spice up thrilling moments with fairly cynical humor without bringing them down, which doesn't always have to work out, either. Although I basically suspected from the beginning how the whole thing would turn out, I didn't mind it in the slightest.

A sensationally melancholic, poetic western about love and friendship, about priorities and tough decisions. Peter Fonda with Warren Oates are a great pair, Zsigmond's camera makes delights for the eyes from ordinary shots, and Langhorne's almost minimalist music enhances it all beautifully. The story just freely flows, and it isn't missing anything. If you like Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Malick's Days of Heaven or, more recently, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, be sure to check out The Hired Hand. You will be satisfied.

A romantic comedy full of flyovers, tours and arrivals, as if it was made by Woody Allen! Like a model of the solar system, all the characters orbit around Růžena Nasková, and it's a joy to watch the rotation. Precisely written and acted, and even more precisely directed. The music of Pavel Haas, who was sadly murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, is truly magnificent, and the love scene in the hay (and the morning awakening of the adorably disheveled Trudy Grosslicht) is really beautiful thanks to her. My beloved Zita Kabátová is barely in the film (but her beauty trumps all the actresses anyway), but even that is fine - today, such a role would be called cameo, and that’s it.

When great actors come together with something to act for, it doesn't matter what backdrops they act in and how televised the result looks, because it's simply worth it. The story of a naive young man in love, despite probably not surprising anyone today, is still thrilling and the horror finale is impressive. Jaromír Hanzlík, Jana Brejchová, Jiří Adamíra and Vladimír Šmeral are exactly as good as you expect them to be.

An interesting story shot in an absolutely captivating way - I really liked it! So much so that I wasn’t even bothered by some of the possibly predictable situations, twists, etc. Great new and seasoned actors, magnificent camera by Vladimir Smutný, directing ideas... And that soundtrack! I hope the album will come out some day, because I have never heard such a mixture of classical music, period swing and contemporary electronica (with a bold remix of the national anthem in the closing credits) in Czech film. If I didn't know who composed it, I'd guess Daniel Pemberton, maybe.

“I forgive you. I hope my neurologist will forgive you too." Jim Carrey is extremely annoying in this role, horrendous, unbearable... But you know what? He was supposed to be like that. I bet Ben Stiller and Co. wanted to bring one of the most awful characters in film history onto the screen and they wanted Matthew Broderick to experience hellish terror and the viewer to suffer with him. And that's exactly what they did. It is simply a very black comedy, and the point with the verdict of the expected trial is outright fatal.

It's a light horror film that winks at its more famous predecessors (The Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary's Baby) and at the same time it wants to be original and bring something of its own into the genre, which it also partially succeeds at. The problem is, sometimes it looks solidly theatrical, at other times like cheesy TV (almost like an episode of Beyond Belief), and despite the rather short runtime it occasionally feels tedious, and for a few of twists the screenwriters deserve... Still, I don't feel like The Seventh Sign robbed me of an hour and a half of my life, because sometime some scenes are (un)pleasantly chilling (if I had seen the film sometime during puberty, I'd probably like it a lot more) and the ending is great. Demi Moore is fine.

An interesting thing is that, while Chaplin can sort of bore me in short films and some of his gags tend to be stretched, he (thankfully) doesn’t in feature films. City Lights is a big caresses punctuated by bursts of laughter - the boxing match is much better than in The Champion (1915), the night to morning parties are perfect... There is also the beautiful romance and the ending, which is not melancholically bitter, but somehow warm and full of hope.