Remedy

I had a healthy dose of skepticism before watching this, as I don't consider these kind of film formats full-fledged and instead feel like they themselves are actually confining and limiting. However, Searching is a very bright exception. First of all, it boasts a very decent screenplay, which at some points strips the whole story of any predictability and serves up a decent dose of suspense through the "mere" computer screen. Sure, it would most likely work as a standard genre film (if it had been shot in a conventional way), but then the overall resonance would remain hidden somewhere in the background. In fact, the message of the whole film is directly tied to its form, which you won't fully appreciate until the end, and maybe a few hours/days after watching it, when you'll think about it all a bit more deeply. An urgent indictment of the Internet, and the digital age in general, or just a detective story cunningly put into an unconventional form? Quite possibly a little of each, but either way a very intelligent and impressive affair that fans of a good thriller should definitely not miss.

A likeable clone of Saw and Cube benefiting above all from the current boom in escape games. It's consumerist entertainment in every sense, skimming the surface for the entire running time, but that's more than enough. Plus, it's very suspenseful, and if you've ever actually played an escape game, you'll probably enjoy the whole thing a little more. The quest rooms are well thought out, the actors are decent, the craftsmanship is top notch. I'd go for a sequel in a heartbeat.

Danny Boyle scores points with his truly unmistakable style even in the field of a hard-to-classify psychological heist thriller, which is wonderfully subtle and actually quite unpredictable. An exemplary symbiosis of sound and image (one of the best "hypnotic" soundtracks used in the film), novel creative techniques (even a simple slap can be filmed and presented in an evocative and original way), and one of the top performances by Rosario Dawson, who must have been cast in this role by some casting genius. I like Boyle much better in this slightly unconventional and understated position (I’m looking at you, Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire), as these types of more modest and intimate works give him much more scope to use his undeniable talent and original techniques.

A textbook example of how to properly mine the best attributes of an entire franchise. The reincarnation of the coolest characters from the previous installments worked very well for the fifth installment, as the chemistry between everyone works great and there's some fine banter at times. It's no longer the pure boyish fun of just cars and scantily clad women, but that doesn't really matter. On the contrary, thanks to the exponentially more expansive action, this is a very cool action movie in which Vin Diesel finally has a respectable rival. And who wouldn't want to see The Rock brawling with Vin Diesel, right?

Watching an hour and a half of a drunk Charlize Theron, who is also extremely annoying and wacky here – is something you just don't want to do. The reason Reitman and Cody worked their way up to that 2 stars for me was ultimately because I was oddly interested to see how the whole thing would turn out and if it could get any worse. In fact, the worst part is that after watching Young Adult, I started to like just about all the villagers in the world. Mavis seemed like the prototype of the ultimate bitch. If there are any emotions in this creative despair, they are bad, primal, and terribly cheap. In fact, the whole thing reminded me remotely of Woody Allen. After a triple dose of electric shocks, a similarly romantic story would have presented a creative challenge for him.

A very weak 4 stars. Alas, Cuarón is getting old, too; so after the famous Gravity (where his directorial inventiveness was pretty damn palpable) he chose very personal material, through which he may very well have wanted to heal his childhood traumas or simply look back nostalgically at his childhood. Personally, I have nothing against a filmmaker using the medium of film as a means of meditation or therapy. Richard Linklater, Oliver Stone, and Steven Spielberg are proof that it is possible to make a deeply personal film that is both audience-appealing and powerfully emotional. I of course get that the emotional flatness of Roma is deliberate from the start. And I understand that Alfonso Cuarón was trying to style himself a biased observer rather than an inventive director. Unfortunately, I can't quite identify with his creative intent. That's probably why I missed the general hype. But it is undoubtedly quality filmmaking and the composition of some shots is very impressive. It just didn't grab me the way I imagined it would.

Yorgos Lanthimos shrewdly uses very modest means (with a modest budget) to create a hypnotic yet quite tense atmosphere. In fact, he makes ample use of distant and seemingly detached long camera shots and a musical motif that burrows under the skin and is a terrified jumble of a few simple sounds. The ambivalent presentation of Martin's character adds to the clearly hard-to-define (but very effective) atmosphere. At first glance, he looks and acts like a nice and innocent boy, while in reality he represents an evil similar to "that nice and innocent Damien" from The Omen.

Judd Apatow tries his best to give a humorous take on life after 40 (or just before 40, since he's already joking about Leslie Mann being 40 when she's 38 – that's a pretty weak gag), but he's not very good at it. The funny moments are mostly just the result of some awkward situation, and unfortunately the notorious "let's at least laugh about it" didn't work for me either. I smiled slightly at the line "J.J. Abrams is ruining our daughter", otherwise all the pop culture references were pointless and self-indulgent. Attempts at a laugh or a joke in this film are more of an expression of desperation because it lacks any perspective. It doesn't even work on the imaginary educational level, because "Judd Apatow imparts life wisdom about life after forty, because he's over forty himself and has a terrible need to show the world what it's like after forty". The cover of the Czech Blu-ray disc says "a bit of a sequel to Knocked Up". I gave Knocked Up 5 stars at the time. This is a worn and very weak 2 stars. Plus the distinctly negative mood of the entire film is extremely annoying.

I enjoyed this only a hair more than Krasinski's naked monsters in all their glory. A lot of that is due to the insane hype around A Quiet Place, where I had read something about it being the best horror film in years and then was actually quite disappointed. Bird Box is also no highlight in the field of horror in recent years, though neither was Susanne Bier even attempting anything like that. Plus, I have a problem with the horror label, because it's just not as scary as I'd like to think of in an echt horror film. What I can definitely single out is maybe the first 20 minutes. The opening is truly really righteous, and I figured if it were to continue in a similar vein, it would be a pretty badass survival thriller. Of course, after the intense opening, the plot flips into a survival drama reminiscent of, say, 10 Cloverfield Lane. On the other hand, even despite Susanne Bier's quite creative direction, the story doesn't offer any downright powerful moment that could sway you. It's fair to mention Sandra Bullock, though, who is unexpectedly great as the complicated mother/protector, while John Malkovich doesn't fall far behind with his cynical pragmatism, stealing a good chunk of the spotlight for himself.

I can't help it, but I just dig these sorts of straightforward films, because for a) I really love unlikely pairings, b) there's always a likable one who fights corporate or some other evil, c) it's pleasantly primitively heroic, and d) even if you know how it's going to end, it's actually suspenseful from beginning to end. Plus, I just love this Bruckheimer production with its flashy camera shots, filters, and (always!) majestic soundtrack in the best sense of the word. Basically, it's a shallow action one-off, but definitely one of the best of the best. Want to get your girl back? Start with a simple handcar and maybe capture the 777. Do it live on all the TVs and you've got your girl back!