Malarkey

I think that Hollywood was making fun of The Three Musketeers a little bit in this one. Charlie Sheen had just finished Hot Shots!, put on a belt, some leather tights, a feathered hat and now he thinks I’ll just accept him in this serious role? Especially since he’s acting exactly like he was in Hot Shots!? If only the movie had at least made fun of it. I kept waiting for the moment the ice would break and it never happened. He was still acting unexceptionably seriously, wannabe funny and it made the movie into an unexceptionably annoying adaptation that I’ll be glad to forget.

I loved the old-timer gang in this movie. Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Alan Arkin and Christopher Lloyd are exactly the people this movie is worth watching for. Other than that, it’s a good old bank heist movie which are a dime a dozen. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it just could’ve used a little bit more fun. This way the grandpas enjoyed a little bit of adrenaline with a moral subtext, but that’s about it. Similar comedies tend to be more amusing than this…

How is it possible that I haven’t heard of this? Good old 80’s comedy starring Tom Hanks and a million-dollar premise that is technically flawless. This is basically buying a house in America and then living through some terrifying scenes that are sensational from start to finish. I only took one star off the rating because the destruction scenes, glorious as they might be, cannot hold a 90-minute movie together. Other than that, a masterpiece!

Barbra Streisand is a well-known enthusiast who is easily excited and so naturally, people tend to talk about her. And not only in the Barbra Streisand song. She’s always been good. The Prince of Tides is a great fit for her. She plays a good character and gets into some good drama, but for the entire two hours, I didn’t really feel like the movie had anything to do with me. The actors were quite good, but as far as the dramatic aspect of the movie goes, it left me as cold as an iceberg.

Wait out the first few minutes of boredom and this documentary gets seriously good. The huntsman and the musician that excitedly tell us all about the things in their basements quickly make room for a lady who keeps a fake baby in her basement and caresses it… Still relatively okay in terms of weirdness. But soon enough, you won’t believe your eyes. This brings voyeurism to a whole new unexplored level and now I finally know what the Austrians keep in their basements. And believe me, I was in such a shock that I failed to notice that some parts didn’t happen in a basement.

After having watched the movie, I have to compare it to A Prominent Patient, although Dubček seems to be a little bit more strapped for cash, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Here we’ve got some freshed-faced actors acting out the politic machinations of the year 1968 that the mind boggles at today, in a clearly theatrical fashion. I must admit that I had no clue who Alexander Dubček was. General knowledge isn’t worth anything here and so I carefully watched every dialogue and character so I wouldn’t miss any information. Of course, I still ended up missing a lot because there’s an overflow of information. On the other hand, I did get a better picture of Dubček – a communist, although one of the better ones. I just can’t seem to understand why such a kind, accommodating person would give into an ideology of a political line that destroyed the economy 20 years ago and killed Milada Horáková some 10 years ago. I simply don’t get it. A much better protagonist would be František Kriegel who nobody talks about, even though he was the only one who didn’t sign the Treaty of Moscow. I’m not saying that Dubček did the wrong thing by signing it, he didn’t really have an option, just like Hácha who had to go watch Hitler take over the country and then he didn’t even get to negotiate. When it comes to the film-making craft, I was more than happy with it. This kind of movie just has to be this theatrical and intimate. Dubček might have been a good person, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the communists have ruined this country in a way that resonates even today. He was right in the final scene… What the Russians have done some 50 years ago will not be forgotten by half of Europe in the next 50 years, too.

The Canadians took up an interesting historical topic with a hint of fantasy, but apart from the locations, there wasn’t really a moment worth remembering. I keep thinking that this is sort of typical with Canadian movies.

A decent French drama with a very interesting story that I haven’t really seen in a drama movie yet and if it were up to me, I don’t know what I’d do in some of the situations. It makes the premise so much more interesting. It’s a shame that the producers have underestimated the situation and ruined the ending a little bit. I was expecting some unravelling, a logical conclusion, but there was just nothing. When you take an interesting human story and don’t even finish it, not even in that graceful way that French movies tend to, you shouldn’t start it at all. The overall impression ended up being really low. The original 4 stars I had in mind turned into solid 3.

There’s a very original idea unravelling throughout the 4 or so hours of the overall footage. A relatively serious story about a hitman who doesn’t have a drop of emotion in him, situated in a completely bungling theatre in Los Angeles, which is exactly where the hitman wants to do his dirty work. A serious tone takes turns with some scathingly dark humor which is really amusing. Bill Hader has really surprised me, and truth be told, I wasn’t even disappointed by the literal ending. It may underline the show’s overall absurdity, but the general quality of the show, confident even in its action scenes, makes up for it.

I’ve watched all the three movies based on the books and I was thinking it could go something like this… I liked the books, but I wasn’t smitten or anything, and it was the same with the miniseries. It has its good moments, but also bad ones. Luckily, the staples of a good crime movie such as partnership, some good noir elements and original, inventive cases were predominant. It’s a shame that Robin’s and Cormoran’s relationship was much richer in the books, but that would probably be wanting a little too much from this show.