Lima

Iñarritu abandons the time fragmentation of 21 Grams and, as in his first film, tells several intertwining stories. The Mexican episode is probably the weakest, with relatively little emotional impact, while the Japanese one seems to have fallen out of another film, but thanks to the likeable lead actress it’s one of the most enjoyable. Great emotions take place in Morocco, with the story of a shepherd and his sons that escalates with great urgency at the end, while the fate of the injured American woman is gripping in places thanks to the great performances of the central duo Pitt – Blanchett, whose circumstantially forced intimate moments are among the film's strongest. The Moroccan episodes are clearly worth 5*, the other two 3*, but if I had to compare, Iñárritu's previous 21 Grams had much more emotional charge overall, at least for me.

A distinctive work by a distinctive artist. What I like about Mel Gibson is that despite the journalistic statements about "sadist Gibson", he still goes about his business, ignores all critics and keeps his creative freedom. He doesn’t spare violence here either, but unlike The Passion of the Christ, it is kept within tolerable limits (like the battle scenes in Braveheart). For example, the scene of the double sacrificial heart-cutting is quite subtly depicted, and its media criticism is completely out of place. If I am telling a story from the time of the late Mayan empire, it would be strange to omit this quite common practice. Aside from Gibson's light allusions to the manipulation of crowds and the depiction of the decadence of society, a concomitant phenomenon of the decline of great empires, looking for some kind of insight here is completely pointless. The whole film is constructed as a kind of ancient narrative of hunters somewhere by the fire, who, with typical male vanity, show off where they killed who, who they escaped from or who they saved. In this respect, the film is absolutely great and I don't really care about the lack of an idea. Moreover, Gibson's direction is imaginative, the make-up and adornments of the protagonists and the visuals of the Mayan metropolis scene are a triumph of cinematic art design. Mel did not disappoint again and continues to be for me a breath of fresh air in the stale Hollywood production :o)

I'd like to write that Lost is a drug with opposite effects: the more you take, the less you like it. The cleverness of Season 1 and its perfectly paced conclusion (the cliffhanger in the last episode) is replaced by the muddled mush of the first half of Season 2, which you can only enjoy if you have a certain level of tolerance for the acting of the guy in the Michelle Rodriguez skirt and are able to accept that the centre of all the action is pushing a button. Certainly the quality of the individual episodes is also directly proportional to the appeal of the flashbacks, with Sawyer clearly having the best, together with John Locke’s his much-maligned "kidney problem", with Boone and Shannon and Charlie and his desperate DriveShaft at the opposite pole. In the current 3rd season, the so-called "bubblegum effect" (i.e. what could be told in half an hour is stretched to 6 episodes, the 3rd episode "Further Instructions" is an example of a complete screenwriting collapse) comes into play, with very effective, but somewhat stupid crutches to dramatize the plot (Sawyer's "implant"). Plus, the way the showrunners have branched out the plot to an unsuspected breadth and brought in a bunch of other big questions (and haven't answered any of them yet), I kind of feel like they have put themselves into a corner. I'm genuinely curious to see how the whole mystery will be solved; either we're looking at one of the biggest duds in the history of television in a few years, or, on the contrary, we’ll see that the Abrams team has created one of the most interesting series of the last decade. The frantic tweaking of the script over the last winter does not inspire much confidence so far. The reasons why I give it a cautious and very weak 4* are as follows: firstly, despite all my qualms, Lost still retains a kind of compelling mystery and manages to surprise. The second reason is the interesting characters free from the black and white concept – especially the extremely charismatic John Locke, the ambiguous rogue Sawyer, or the mysterious Henry. For now we can only say "we'll see, we'll see", there is still plenty of time for a conclusive assessment.

BIKINI KOMBAT!!! Baywatch meets The Shaw Brothers and the result is a 100% brainless affair that redefines the term "shit" and becomes a hot candidate for inclusion in www.badmovies.org. Unfortunately, the overly dense frequency of brawls makes DOA a rather monotonous affair as time goes on. I enjoyed it's stepsibling, Paul W.S. Anderson's visually much more sophisticated Mortal Kombat (Anderson co-produced DOA), infinitely more, even though it was really about the same thing.

Visually, there is nothing to complain about. Every dollar of the 100 million budget is visible in the generous production design, Zwick is very good at action scenes, the two key ones, the massacre in Freetown and the attack on the RUF camp, are examples of great filmmaking. But the film fails in the story, which is an amalgamation of a poor attempt at some kind of overarching idea pointing out the pains of contemporary Africa, and a completely bland plot. It’s written according to the tried-and-tested formula of mainstream Hollywood productions, with a predictable plot and a lot of clichés, including a cheesy final phone call that definitely left my eyes dry. This is also because the script gives very little space to the emotional tension between Archer and Maddy, whose tears – thrill me, kill me – I simply didn't believe, and even the strong scenes (the training of small RUF adepts) get completely lost among the plot ballast. There was no deep lasting experience, only "watch it and forget after a while". Otherwise, Djimon Hounson's expressive performance was once again a pleasure, DiCaprio has finally manned up and stole some scenes (I could feel his suppressed anger at Hounson during a great scene with a hunted baboon) and his work with a machine gun during the attack on the RUF camp would be appreciated even by John Rambo :)

After the extremely underrated The Village, another great effort by Mr.Shaymalan, where I felt a film moving away from mainstream audiences, which I applaud. As with the previous film, a wonderfully atmospheric affair with a great Howard score, some strong moments and Giamatti definitely going into my acting top ten. If you hated the twist of The Village (which was not the point of the film, no matter what anyone says), you will not find anything similar here. Shyamalan has abandoned his traditional trademark of surprising final twists (unless you count the reveal of "The Guardian"), but from the start he develops an original fairy-tale mythology that makes this film at times what one might call "strange" but intriguing. It's impeccable to discuss with equally afflicted film buffs and loses nothing with a second viewing. So, I say, carry on Mr Shyamalan and next time you’ll get 5*. I just hope he won't be deterred from further work by the not-so-favorable response from audiences and film critics (you can do it, Shy, you send the Skrunts after them and it'll be fine).

The last (I hope) Rocky doesn't surprise with anything, the story is again simple and straightforward, with a pinch of combat adrenaline, and life wisdoms that sound out of Harlequin books, some of which caressed the soul. Rocky's final farewell to the audience in the boxing ring (and symbolically, Sly's farewell to this character, which suddenly catapulted him to the cinematic Olympus) left me surprisingly cold, but there’s no denying that it is a worthy farewell. Mainly because there is no lack of insight, Stallone faces the advancing years head on and occasionally throws down some nice and funny lines. In short, Sly made me happy. The film is worth 3 stars, the fourth one is thrown in for nostalgia’s sake, which Sly enlivened with several functional short flashbacks. And why not admit it, I have a soft spot for this hard-working "Italian Stallion".

I wouldn't have expected such a bland performance from Norton (another Italian Job?), and maybe he didn't even know what ear-splitting lines the script would force him to let out of his mouth. The only thing that keeps this below-average fable afloat, with the look of a slightly more expensive TV production, is the great (and better from film to film) Giammatti, while the final Shyamalan-like twist stands on very shaky legs. And I might rename the whole film to "Hologram Man" – Eisenheim's stunts in the second half were closer to science fiction than to illusory shenanigans (nasty nitwit Lima).

Mitchum's absolutely delicious, characteristically ambiguous Dr.March is great – cynical and almost reprehensible in his relationship with his wife. On the other hand, his correct and almost fanatically consistent adherence to medical ethics seemed out of this world in the context of the lax attitude of his colleagues. Such a well-written character was just a joy to watch. Add to that the enjoyable and talented Sinatra and de Havilland and a nice emotional ending, then I'll slap on a 4* without even blinking.

The atmosphere and the production design are flawless (I simply love films with this retro mood), unfortunately the story seemed too skeletal and it was even missing De Palma's visual tricks like in Snake Eyes or The Untouchables. Hartnett's sonorous, deep voice was beautifully suited to the role of the narrative guide, and at times it even seemed that De Palma had turned him into something called an "actor", but then the ghost of Gittes from the similarly tuned Chinatown appeared before my eyes and I immediately dismissed the idea. Hartnett tries, but he can't play the dark strings, he's such a "sunny boy", every moment I expected him to rip off his jacket and hat and jump on a skateboard, and that leaves the characters of actors a class better than him – Eckhart and Johansson – without much room to be more engaging. All in all, it comes out to a – forgettable – three points.