Malarkey

So, after a long time, I tried Wim Wenders again, to see if I don’t change my mind. And my mind, once again, hasn’t been changed. The only plus of this film is the noir atmosphere, which the movie stands on.

I had no idea that the homeless are publicly living in an Indonesian Zoo and can, but don’t have to, help the animals. And that they keep coming and going. Otherwise, the film is quite complex. It doesn’t have a coherent narrative which you could hold on to. It’s rather a sort of mix of shots from Indonesia, which talk about the lives of the local people and animals. Some shots and information are rather interesting, others are completely useless.

Aren’t there too many of these political period dramas? Right? There was A Prominent Patient, Dubček, quite recently Rašín and currently Toman, for a change. This person was, I admit, unfamiliar to me. I was expecting an espionage thriller, so something that isn’t completely common in our country. Well, I partially got it. The film really radiates great quality. After all, Ondřej Trojan isn’t a director who would leave the filming of his ideas up to chance. Quite the opposite. Rather, I had a problem with the fact that the first half of the film is too historically factual and at the same time very little film-like. The film-like quality appears only about after 2 thirds of the movie, where I really started to get excited by the dynamic character of the movie and at the same time, I had to admit that the historical factuality has its place here. I think it’s really hard to make a movie based on history and explaining the historical context in a way that would make sense. Here, the movie sacrificed its first half to it, but it was justified in the end. After the film, my friend and I talked and wondered whether Toman was a good person. That’s a question every viewer probably has to answer on their own. In truth, we didn’t figure it out. The only thing that really got to us were the actions of the communist party after the year 1945 and consequently in 1948. I am not going to spoil anything, but I felt really sick. Toman thus definitely deserves the attention it is getting. I just feel like it will have something to say mainly to us and the Slovaks and it won’t catch on in Europe. Well… I might be wrong.

An unbelievably naïve family movie, which is on top of that also terribly simple. The main villain here is a guy who is blackmailing a small boy with a dog, he steals all his money and buys out all electronics the boy brings to him for a dime. And nobody notices anything. Not even a pig would act the way the idiot did. Well, and when I decided to finish it, because I was hoping somebody would slap him so hard that he’d break his nose against the floor, nothing actually happened in the end.

Direction-wise a solidly crafted Marvel movie with literally amazing action scenes, but with an average main character. The existence of the comic book character doesn’t help him and neither does the fact that Marvel is attempting to balance the representation of genders of the human race. Maybe it wasn’t intended in that way, but it definitely looks like it; Wakanda is so boring and unfunny that it’s hard to find anything positive about it. But yeah, I realize that Black Panther has a place in the universe. He for sure won’t be my favorite hero, though.

Quite simple, unoffending, and a pretty average seniors’ comedy. That’s not an insult, only a fact.

The first installment was a pleasant Polish surprise for me. Screenwriting-wise, the Polish proved that they can also make a Christmas comedy, which quietly connects a number of different lives… and it still manages to make sense. The label of the Polish answer to Love Actually was really justified. The second installment is a notch weaker, but it’s still very nice. The actors are, thankfully, reappearing, which is good. I remembered them quickly. What’s worse (even though only about a notch) is the connection of the individual lives into a united finale. Actually, screenwriting-wise it’s a lot simpler when compared to the first installment. The truth is, though, that it’s still a very pleasant Christmas comedy.

I wouldn’t completely condemn Pepa for living quite an unorthodox life. Well, some people are like that. And that it’s coincidentally Pepa and that the movie talks about him? The movie has to show some sort of extreme. If it showed what’s average, everybody would forget about it and they might even never think about it again. The first half of the movie was, after all, quite good. The period of communism reminded me of comedies from the turn of the millennium, which kept taunting the communists and taunt them until this day. As soon as the story swung into the present day, which shows where the melancholic Papa ended up, the story somehow stops working. Michal Suchánek is good, that’s all. The case is worse when it comes to some of Pepa’s opinions, which turned Pepa into his current self. Some people were, based on the reviews here, offended by this; I wasn’t. Unfortunately, even people like this live among us.

Once in a while, the TV shows some real human experience, which deserves to be labeled as the best that movie dramas can offer. And it’s clear that the main focus here will be on the story. In this case, the story again involves the Second World War. Not that it takes place in it. Rather, it ends one unfinished chapter. The camera will thus very quickly transport you from Germany to tumultuous Ukraine, which is kind of living its own separate life and kickstarts the story of the character which is so brilliantly portrayed by Jürgen Prochnow. It shows us human nature, both its good and bad aspects. It compares nationalities, lives before and after the war. It compares what was then and what is now, it observes the absurdity of borders and it tries to answer a number of unanswered family questions. All of that in the span of 107 minutes, which this film has at its disposal. A movie full of good people and people who simply are the way they are. Neither bad nor good, simply unique. Subject to the time, a given state, a given life in a given time. Simply a story of a former Wehrmacht officer who, coincidentally, became a member of the Ukrainian Kozaks. You will find out what happened next in this beautiful and unique life story.

A great idea which sweetened the horror waters of the year 2018. A movie where there is little talking, because it’s set in a dystopian world with an extraterrestrial civilization that destroys everything that speaks aloud. There is a whole array of logical errors, but the simplicity and originality overshadow the contents. The suspense is literally spouting from the movie and the married couple Emily Blunt and John Karsinski are truly enjoying this family horror drama. Just like the viewer, after all. Only from a slightly different perspective.