Lima

Suitably brutal for Aja (unrated version), with some delicious murders, but otherwise a step backwards compared to High Tension. The first half, including the attack on the caravan, was still decent, capable of sending chills down the spine. But in the second half the tension fades and it’s replaced by heroic pathos and clichés that buried even those extremely tense situations that should make the viewer tremble with fear. That's also why I wasn't worried about the main characters, which is bad. Aja is a very capable director but struggles with bad scripts. PS: Parrot lovers won’t be happy.

The unreservedly enthusiastic foreign responses did not lie. In the beginning, Greengrass brilliantly gives the viewer a glimpse into the 9/11 shock and awe of what's going on in the flight centers (I guarantee that although you've seen the second plane crash into one of the Twin Towers at least a hundred times, Greengrass's rendition of the visually haunting footage will give you the chills again). The last 40 minutes, starting with the hijacking of the plane, is an incredible emotional ride, at the end of which, in the scene where the passengers break into the cockpit, I had a heart rate of about 220 and was picking my dropped jaw up off the floor; this despite knowing how it all turns out. Brilliant! And if you're worried about the pathos, with shots full of stars and blue-red stripes, you fear is unwarranted, Greengrass is just too good for that. PS: Given the incredible courage shown by some of the passengers, which the film captures so powerfully, I believe their survivors could not have asked for a better cinematic epitaph.

Howard is innocent here. The plot, which is primarily about talking and talking, probably couldn't be filmed better. Even the actors do a solid job considering what the script allowed them to do (both Hanks and Tautou were fine, not to mention McKellen). And those two and a half hours did go by pretty quickly. Why 2* then? The problem is the rambling source material and, logically, the script. Brown confuses apples with pears, history with myths, creates conspiracy theories as a skillful manipulator, which are nice to listen to (and read), but at their core they are pulled from the proverbial ass and are closer to stupidity rather than controversy (but what can you expect from a man who confuses bits with bytes in his “Digital Fortress”, right?). How am I supposed to enjoy such a film when what it presents - from the premise to the unbelievable characters - is one big pile of nonsense? At the end, when the twist is revealed, I was just waiting for Monty Python to show up and sing a song. I can understand the big sales, a hearty media and advertising campaign can do wonders ("Film of the Century!" etc.), but I wonder, did this "poor man’s Daniken" really sell 60 million copies? Well, to each their own, but everyone gets what they deserve, of course.

Jealous woman and queen, that's a deadly combination; an interesting historical figure as Joan of Castille certainly deserved her own film. The film is not a lavish spectacle, rather, the filmmakers focused on Johanna's feelings and behaviour through a conversational level, her morbid obsession with Philip I the Magnificent, which put her duties as monarch on the back burner, to the detriment of the country. Her jealousy is the source of many rewarding moments for the audience, and they make the two hours pass like water. I would like to highlight the really great Pilar Lopez de Ayala in the title role, and the "flawless male" (words a female friend) Daniel Liotta as Filip will catch the eye of many female viewers (I have it confirmed).

Sláma's two previous films are close to my heart, perhaps because of their genuineness – from the unvarnished realistic setting, full of interesting people, often from the lower rungs of society, to the natural performances of everyone, from the pros to the non-actors. And although I've always had a problem with Pavel Liška's acting, I liked him very much here, also because his likeable character was well written. And that ending, it was unusual, unexpected.....and beautiful.

A film by fans of 1950s Hollywood sci-fi B-movies for similarly afflicted fans (of which I count myself among), an all-around ultra low-budget (a whopping $40k) enthusiastic affair that is killed by its overlong 90-minute runtime (most genre-related films from the 1950s get by just fine with about an hour of pure time), given the simplicity of the script. By the end, it was tedious. Shorten it by half an hour or so, throw out the verbal filler and a few unnecessary scenes, and it would be a delicious genre treat, where the blatant visual austerity wouldn't be a bad thing. You won't see worse visual effects (quite deliberate, of course) anywhere else, and the main villain, a skeleton apparently borrowed from a biology teacher somewhere in school, was a lot of fun, especially in his slapstick fights, with an actor holding it and swinging it around, pretending to wrestle (as in the famous fight with the octopus in Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster). The main attraction, the monster on the poster, had a punishingly small space, but his sneakers were awesome :)

The intricate espionage games like in De Palma's first film take a back seat, Abrams presents a pure action spectacle, during which you can calmly sit through an unintentionally self-parodic resuscitation scene and the fact that Hunt's emotional relationship with his wife is brought to life through some really toe-curling dialogues, and I, as an ordinary viewer, will hardly care if they are just a mockery of a genre cliché (which I may or may not believe). Leaving aside the recent and brilliant The Bourne Supremacy, the last time I enjoyed a similar ride on the big screen was perhaps twelve years ago with de Bont's Speed. The impressive opening, which introduces Seymour Hoffman as a truly amazing, uncompromising bad guy, is followed by a slowed-down breath to a big continuous action whirlwind that, with a few cool plot twists and very little respite, only ends with the onset of the closing credits. I really enjoyed myself. PS: Cruise seems to be a capable producer and lately a better and better actor, but here again he chose a weaker moment with his sometimes theatrical speech.

A humorously written story and a pleasant 90 minutes spent in the company of aging rock bards whose quest to return to the limelight and defy the adage "You never step into the same river twice" is so likeable that it's impossible not to root for them. Although their sometimes simple stone-age rock is not my cup of tea, the entertaining theatrics of the brilliant Bill Nighy made it almost a treat in places; and the rest of the cast was certainly not lagging behind him. It´s Only Rock´n´Roll, so go on, grandpas, look at Lemmy :)

In its day a powerhouse of festival awards around the world. I remember its release on TV during the communist era, when I loved the extremely likeable central couple of young actors and the wonderful portrayal of their love relationship, and the emotional climax of the film – the son's fleeting meeting with his mother during his leave, when she can hardly even hug him and he has to go back to the front – almost brought tears to my eyes. There's even a little bit of an unobtrusive anti-war appeal. Beautifully acted, beautifully directed, surprisingly and endearingly "non-Soviet" and free of political ballast. A very nice and enjoyable film and a well-deserved worldwide success. PS: It's a shame that the old Russian cinema is now cursed, but it has a lot of beautiful films to offer, not just the thousand-times seen Frosty.

A powerful film with brilliant dialogue, refreshing historical memory and, in the character of Spencer Tracy, a portrayal of the moral strength of an individual for whom justice always prevails over political interests. And on top of that, a double pleasure, from the masterful acting, where one must single out Maxmilian Schell, whose defence lawyer’s devotion reminded me in places of the infamous Bolshevik prosecutor Urvalek, and the orgiastic experience of the old Czech dubbing school (and I am not a fan of dubbing at all), which in the time of K.M.Walo and others was the best in the world.