POMO

Danny Collins is a somewhat mundane, boring movie with only one distinctive element – an experienced star actor whose character, however, does not arouse much sympathy and might seem cool only to those ladies in the front row of one of his concerts. In his old age, Al Pacino as an egoistic bohemian tries to find the way to his estranged son as a gazillion other characters did before him in a gazillion other films. At the same time, he’s trying to make the unattainable Annette Bening have dinner with him, but not in such an entertaining and charming way as Jack Nicholson tried to do with Helen Hunt in As Good as It Gets.

Department Q is more sophisticated and sweeping than The Keeper of Lost Causes and has more interesting supporting characters. Only the awkward plot development in the form of an escape from the cell before the climax spoils the impression of a first-class crime film. And the climax itself could have been longer and more dramatic.

This should have opened the "Songs of Innocence" album. The music video is also excellent. It’s energetic and contains great work with light.

Nobody expected a revolutionary cliché-free contribution to the genre, not even from Warner Bros. The same goes for Emmerichian wit and insight. The characters are fine, unlike those in last year’s Into the Storm, and better than those in Poseidon. So, overall it’s an alright movie, a display of decent craft without errors and surprises.

Made in Germany, Not My Day is the kind of OK heist movie that Hollywood releases in the offseason. After a slow and unpromisingly unoriginal introduction, it kicks off and gives the viewer a decent amount of fun. But the “we’ve seen this before” feeling lasts until the end. Fans of Moritz Bleibtreu can raise the rating to four stars, even though his character is nuts. Til Schweiger also stops by to say hello in what is perhaps the funniest moment of the film.

A forgettable social drama about a simple, good-natured black guy who has a hard time in Paris because he’s an illegal immigrant.

Based on the dim memories of the events of the lost script, the second half of this film seems to have been filmed only by the clapper loader and the cameraman. Or by an editor on crack. The first half is OK.

Ex Machina is a sensitive and engaging depiction of artificial intelligence shrouded in mystery with a pleasant sci-fi feel. The actress playing the female android is great. But the surprising twist and the way it is used dramatically proves that screenwriter and director Alex Garland might not be as clever as his brilliant male heroes.

With characters defined by their looks, makeup and costumes, Fury Road is a super cool, non-stop action ride with amazing drive that pretends to have some sort of plot. The experienced George Miller has adapted the trends of contemporary blockbusters (a deafening audiovisual aspect that’s more important than the storyline) into a distinct vision of a post-apocalyptic world (with which perhaps someone else can find an emotional connection?), fitting it with dozens of clever details that are insignificant for the story, but turn the movie as a whole (together with the over-the top drive I’ve already mentioned) into a unique film entertainment product. The close-up of a head rising from the sand is the shot of the year.

Did they really use to make such openly erotic films at such a high level, i.e. films that are about sexual relationships from start to finish and contain explicit shots, but are not cheap porn, have a proper plot, gradation, nice visuals and sensual poetics? The Image was a revelation to me. The exact opposite of the unnecessary, empty and unexciting Fifty Shades of Grey.