POMO

You spend the whole time wondering where this is going and looking for the driving force, and in the end you are moved to tears. As a screenplay and the directorial debut of a young actor whom no one has ever taken seriously, this is a revelation. A small Czech film that has achieved world-class originality with small means, without calculations, and with a desire to tell a powerful story with autobiographical elements.

This schizophrenic trifle is comprehensible, but it seems aloof due to its pretentious surrealism; it’s impossible to connect with it and enjoy it. An interesting form with a grim noir environment, high-quality actors, but no content. I recommend that you rather watch Lost Highway, which is less comprehensible but it will captivate you and won’t let go.

The second Captain America, reasonably moved to the “present”, is more serious and filled with more physical action. It takes place predominantly in the streets (cars and shootings) and it’s nice that the movie’s best scene is dominated by Samuel L. Jackson. However, the conspiracy plot is unsurprising and becomes chaotic in the second half. The initial diversity of the action-scene settings also disappears in the second half. And the action scenes are not helped much by being finished with contrived twists (anyone can be rescued from anywhere at the last moment). However, the audience will be kept on their toes with respect to the identity of the intriguing villain until the end. And the villain’s shared past with the Captain saves the plot. As a spectacular comic book blockbuster that you can watch with your brain turned off, it’s not bad.

Stoker is a visually charming version of the plot involving psychopathic intruder in the family, as defined by Hitchcock in 1943 and then repeated in every detective TV series ever made. Except that this time it is presented through compelling acting performances, but without emotions, tension and credible psychology of the characters, so it doesn’t work in the slightest and ends up being completely useless.

The mood of this film is in the spirit of Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River mixed with Ben Affleck’s The Town, but slower, more extensive, more attentive to the characters and with more layers of thought. It is a powerful film about people, actions and consequences, responsibility, guilt and forgiveness. The viewer’s engagement in the story deepens with every tenminute increment. Its music is unconventional, even hypnotic – the silent chants used as the background to the last quarter of the film lend it, in the context of a culminating relationship collision, the fateful depth that Terrence Malick’s recent films only pretend to have by using similar chants. I was looking forward to seeing Ryan Gosling, but Bradley Cooper overshadowed him by delivering his best, most intimate performance to date. I am surprised that producer Sidney Kimmel didn’t do more lobbying at the Academy, because this is an independent American film at the level of Sergio Leone.

Never have I seen in a film such precision and conciseness that Susanne Bier has in depicting the feelings of characters using fast-paced but detailed shots of the actors’ faces. An unexpected development of the storyline and the number of relationship nuances and their complexity would be enough for two separate feature-length films. Brilliant. Also due to the acting performances. The occasional milking of the audience’s feelings can be forgiven, as it’s balanced by the social intelligence of the film. After the Wedding is an excellent relationship film.

A visionary’s life-view expressed through film images and music in a sci-fi environment. The thematic scope is absolute, from the birth of thought and awareness of one’s own personality at the very beginning of humanity to the threat of the dominance of artificial intelligence over advanced civilization in the future. The patience-requiring pace of the film aptly symbolizes the human life span and, in conjunction with the depth and mystery of the universe, also the distant-nature of the answers to our existential questions. Except for the old-fashioned inverse filters in the final fly-overs over the land, it’s an amazingly timeless movie. The picture quality of the restored version shown in cinemas in 2014 is perfect.

A presentation of Warner Bros. trademarks in the world of the construction-set king. It is the movie with the heaviest product placement ever (if we don’t count Logorama) hiding behind family fun. You take your kids to the multiplex, buy them some overpriced popcorn and on the way home spend the rest of your money in the Lego store. A few cool jokes and thorough technical craftsmanship, but those robotic figures are no more alive than the primitively animated Cartman and Kenny. And the final surprise with the “big idea” doesn’t make any sense.

A highly spectacular, comic-book-like bloody football match with an irresistible animalistic sex scene at half-time (which turned me on) and a subsequent poetic statement in the climax (which brought me to my knees). Praise goes to the film’s creators for the opulent conception of a sequel as a massive tune-up of the first instalment, which now seems modest in comparison.

This playful coloring book is highly original in Wes Anderson’s traditional fashion. The fast-paced narrative tells an engaging story about interesting characters, who shine due to the brilliant actors portraying cast. I’m glad the film succeeded commercially even in US cinemas, because its unique filmmaker deserves it.