13th (2016)

USA
directed by: Ava DuVernay
written by: Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick
appearing: Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates, Van Jones
seen: 18th December, 2017

It may be possible I'm at the point where I've forgotten how to evaluate documentaries. It seems to me that the ideas discussed are being overshadowed by a very amateurish approach of the film-makers. The (over)use of graphics and music was rather terrible and even the way the interviews and archive materials were edited together seemed more like it was a quickly put together show from a cheap network and not like a serious creative testimony. Any of John Oliver's coverages of one of these topics would seem a lot more professional than this. He and his team at least do not hide the fact that they are being emotionaly manipulative. I think this documentary can have informational value only to those who never heard or read a single word about this subject matter.

Kundun (1997)

USA
directed by: Martin Scorsese
written by: Melissa Mathison
starring: Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong, Gyurme Tethong, Tulku Jamyang Kunga Tenzin
seen: 1st December, 2017

Lately I mentioned that Scorsese (or his films, should I say) rather pisses me off. Well, Kundun is the best possible way for him to redeem himself in my eyes. I don't feel like explaining the experience of this film with words too much, but I just have to mention how Melissa Mathison uses the good old narrative trick of starting with character's childhood and then jumping forward in time preciously and meaningfully. Many films use this trick and many of these films have no basis for its usage, rendering it superfluous and unutilized, but this film isn't one of those.

-"They have taken away our silence."

The Princess Bride (1987)

USA
directed by: Rob Reiner
written by: William Goldman (+ book)
starring: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright, Peter Falk
seen: 29th November, 2017

I'm trying to imagine that I'm an american young adult who grew up with The Princess Bride as the ultimate from-the-heart-feel-good film who would see a czech from-the-heart fairy tale film for the first time. Would my feelings be similar to those I have as a czech young adult with czech fairy tales deeply in my heart, seeing The Princess Bride for the first time? Because, frankly, my TBP impressions are as follows: "My oh my, eighties must have been a terrible time" plus "a lot of that violence is both harmless and unwarranted" and mostly "all those people on the internet with their enormous praise for The Princess Bride created a colossally impossible to fulfil expectations on my part".

Or perhaps my nationality and my favourite films aren't as important as the saddening fact that I am no longer either a child or a teenager so all I can do is to laugh at the few crafty jokes and ask myself the philosophical question who I find more attractive, Robin Wright or Cary Elwes, because they are both really almost unbelievably beautiful, but the magic of the film itself leaves me completely unaffected?

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

USA/Canada
directed by: Ang Lee
written by: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana + Annie Proulx (a short story)
starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
comment: 29th November, 2017

One of those film where I'm watching it and something just doesn't sit well with me, and I'm wondering what it is, because some parts I like a lot, like really like. And then I read somewhere on the internet that Gus van Sant was interested in directing it, a real gay with real experiences with films about people wandering about in nature, being silent and/or mumbling to themselves, and right after that I imagine how gorgeously would this nature and these people and their silence and speaking and inexpressible feelings look under van Sant's direction, and right after that I understand what didn't sit well with me, it was Ang Lee and his dull style.

-"Friend, that's more words than you've spoke in the past two weeks." -"Hell, that's the most I've spoke in a year."

Taxi Driver (1976)

USA
directed by: Martin Scorsese
written by: Paul Schrader
starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd
comment: 27th November, 2017

I have a suspicion that almost every essential film of the New Hollywood movement gives me absolutely nothing. Taxi Driver is just another nail in the coffin, confirming my words. I learned about it in film school, I read how this is ground-breaking and that is raw and everything is career-defining and all, but when I'm watching it, I just don't see what is it about and what is going on, plain and simple, I don't see it.

I learn nothing about the protagonist and he goes through everything without any change at all. He doesn't get wiser, he doesn't get stronger, he doesn't cure himself, he doesn't find a connection with the world outside his head, he doesn't go really bonkers, he doesn't die. Nothing. Jodie Foster's character (and that goes for Cybill Shepherd as well) is present so little on screen that I wander why do people even mention her when talking about the film's reputation. Well yes, it's her life that changes the most because of the events of the film, but it happens off screen and we only hear an unreliable emotionless voice describe it in a letter. I don't understand this film.

WALL-E (2008)

USA
directed by: Andrew Stanton
written by: Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon + Andrew Stanton (story), Pete Docter (story)
starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin
comment: 25th November, 2017

-"I don't wanna survive. I wanna live!"

I very much appreciate the immaculate and precise combination of probably the most cynical and the most naive stuff american creators can risk putting in a film "for children". Despite WALL-E being that kind of protagonist who is so nice that he's almost boring, one has to admire his ability to inspire and gently point the humans and robots alike towards self-awareness and self-realization. Perhaps WALL-E himself is not important so much as an interesting (or uninteresting) character, but rather as a personification of ideas explored in the film narrative. So I grew to like him and the film and of course I cried, mainly when Also Sprach Zarathustra started playing.

West Side Story (1961)

USA
directed by: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise
written by: Ernest Lehman + Jerome Robbins (play), William Shakespeare (play)
starring:  Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
comment: 22nd November, 2017

Looking at myself in the mirror today, it's clear that I managed to overcome the pure undiluted hatered I had towards "classical" musicals (although from all those made before the year 2000 I still truly like only Jesus Christ Superstar). I'm not sure if that's a character development worth a pat on the back, but given that thanks to that I managed to quite enjoy an unbiased repeat viewing of West Side Story, maybe it is.

One of the undeniable positives of the film is the creative use of dancing as a means of communication and demonstration of characters backgrounds (and not just as a pretty, meaningless ornament - see my recent angry review of vanity in La La Land). Here, music and dance help the hooligans to engage non-verbally and with a clear message and universal understandability. And isn't that all we really want from films? It is for me.

I am also extremely satisfied by the dominant colour palette (purple, crimson, orange and turquoise forever), because often with films that are widely regarded as visually beautiful I get the feeling that their colours either turn my stomach inside out or are just simply tacky and illogical (such as the trendy desaturised blue grays - see for example Wan's horror flicks - or tawdry primer blues, reds, greens and yellows of Avatar and other mainstream "exotics" - that's one palette abomination that never stops to haunt me). West Side Story also helped me to discover the painter Robert Vickery and his work full of light and shadow, so a big thank you is due here.

The one thing I could ironically imagine this film without is the whole main Romeo and Juliet allusion, or should I say the two main lovers and their antics together. Their chemistry is weak and unconvincing, their characters are not particularly distinctive or interesting, their songs are the most boring parts of the film for me, and their love is not even the main point of the film in my eyes. I was at my happiest when it was a lively drama about all immigrants being equal in America, except when some are more equal than others.

Avatar (2009)

USA/United Kingdom
written and directed by: James Cameron
starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Michelle Rodriguez
comment: 11th November, 2017

Originally, I had prepared notes for a very long and detailed list of everything that upset me about Avatar. But then I watched WALL-E, teared up a bit and realized that those are basically the same films and that where Andrew Stanton did everything right, James Cameron did everything wrong. I also realized that I, as a viewer, a self-appointed critic and, last but not least, a human being, should not dedicate so much of my attention to hateful stuff, but rather I should happily cry about things that are worth it and that's it. So I'll limit myself to describing only the most fatal flaw I see in this Cameron's creation, and of course that is the screenplay. Because a fundamentally flawed script  is the only answer to the question whey didn't I enjoy a film about my two favourite subjects: 1. "People, what a bunch of bastards." and 2. "Our civilisation is doomed."

Had Cameron built a functional dramatic and emotional arc for his film, I might have had (I hope that's the corret grammar) forgiven everything I found poor and shallow. But Jake's story bears no sings of thorough design and/or execution (because the authors rely on the weakest means of telling a story, such as training montages (the only acceptable training montage is found in Zoolader - "relax and kill the prime minister of Malaysia", every other training montage signifies weak storytelling and that's a statement I firmly stand by) or unnecessarily explanatory voice-over diary. And that's why I cannot forget and forgive the bad stuff about Avatar, but I am rather inclined to percieve even the few good things as belittled and clueless. So fare thee well and should you wonder what will I do while Cameron supposedly coughs up four more of these (was?! - german for what?!), know this: I'll be rewatching "Fantastic Planet" and "Princess Mononoke" for the seventh time.

The Jungle Book (2016)

USA/United Kingdom
directed by: Jon Favreau
written by: Justin Marks + Rudyard Kipling (book)
starring: Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley
seen: 18th October, 2017

The bravest thing they could do to make me respect this rendition of this particular fictional universe would be to make it less fictional by having the animals behave like animals, ergo have them NOT TALKING (and also not spontaneously jazz singing, wtf?!). The overall realism of the visual element practicaly beggs for it. Most impressive are the moments without spoken dialogue (helping the elephants, stealing the fire). Once the animals start talking using human voices, suddenly it feels like so much stupider film than it could have been without it.

As a child I always preferred the "chilling, harsh and real" stuff in films (even in those targeted at kids) and I did not liked being talked down. Children are capable of understanding actions and infering meanings if we let them. It makes me wanna cry that they missed such a great opportunity to make a badass jungle story. Use the explanatory voiceover if you must (if the studio underestimates the intelligence of its audiences that much), but make the communication between heroes in their authentic, real language.

And to conclude my cry I must say that I really appreciate what Jon Favreau said about his approach: "In Kipling's time, nature was something to be overcome. Now nature is something to be protected."

Blade Runner (1982)

USA/Hong Kong/United Kingdom
directed by: Ridley Scott
written by: Hampton Fancher, David Webb Peoples + Philip K. Dick (book)
starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young
comment: 13th October, 2017

The emotional strain of this film is bafflingly baffling to me. If I were to describe the subject matter, it would sound like all the things I like: Sci-fi about the end of the world (humanity), love found at unexpected places, room filled with terrifying dolls, emptied narration, a robot owl, crying Rutger Hauer, I mean, a lot of theoretical fun. But when I actually watch it, none of that makes actuall sense to me. I don't know what I'm supposed to find enjoyable about that or if it's expected of me to root for some of those bastards? Deckard seems like a simple minded rapist and other characters just sit around like those terrifying dolls, nobody seems real and most of the encounters feel like a rehersed act for the camera, not like an inevitable situation pushed by a well-built fictional world.

Instead of tears vanishing in rain I am left with questions like how did the gun-toting replicant got out of a federal building full of with agents? How can the true origin of a manufactured mechanical being only be determined by psychoanalysis? If the Earth is indeed a place where only the sick and poor who cannot afford a relocation to a "brave new world" stay, why are the replicants forbidden to roam around? And not that I really care about answers to these questions. I don't. And the final and maybe the biggest disappointment was that the highly praised soundtrack was a letdown for me as well.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

USA/United Kingdom/Hungary/Canada
directed by: Denis Villeneuve
written by: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green + Philip K. Dick (book)
starring: Ryan Gosling, Sylvia Hoeks, Ana de Armas
seen on 11th October, 2017

I will have to watch it again some time to find out if I can replicate the feeling of watching it in well-souding cinema hall. (And sadly also in 3D which I found out to be completely useless, I'm not a child to need reminding that things in the front are in the front, and that those in the back are in the back, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the film itself.) I liked it a lot during this cinema visit, a lot more that I liked the original Blade Runner (which to me is a poster child for a "meh" movie). I found Blade Runner 2049 to be the perfect combination of intellectual and commercial entertainment.

In "Arrival" I was bothered by the naive and foreseeable story about relationships between characters that do not have enough time to develop themselves naturally. The story here is as "empty" as possible, sometimes to the point that I was forgetting what were we actually following along with the character(s), but, oh boy, did I like watching it and listening to it, and, let's face it, feel a bit of that existential loneliness.

The main thing that bothered me here was Jared Leto, he is at that point in his career where he only shows off for the camera without trying to give his characters some kind of inner consistency. Sylvia Hoeks was indeed diabolical and yeah, there were more proper female than male characters. I guess it's a rising trend and as long as it makes sense like it does here it makes me happy. But I will have to watch it again to find out if the good feeling wasn't just some kind of weird cinema hallucination.

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

United Kingdom
directed by: Nicolas Roeg
written by: Paul Mayersberg + Walter Tevis (book)
starring: David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark
seen: 6th October, 2017

I was under the impression that nothing sounds like the potentially best film in history than "a psychedelic documentary about the arrival of the reverend David Bowie and assortment of blessings and curses amongst Earthlings". Sadly, my hopes were not met. The first fifteen minutes gave an excellent example of surrealism being used in the service of experimental sci-fi. But the rest of the film slowly sank into an incoherent, uninteresting and amateurish stagger that could end in any given moment or keep going forever, a.k.a. my desire for meaning and purpose in storytelling was overwhelmingly dissatisfied.

This film gave me same vibes as Easy Rider = the drugged overconfidence that "the substance" will reveal itself without a targeted effort from film-makers themselves and the connection to the time of inception that makes it for me, removed from the seventies zeitgeist, largely incomprehensible. In the end, the one thing that sticks with me the most is my discovery of the origin of the brilliantly opulent ping pong autumn forest wallpaper room (including real dead leaves on the fake lawn carpet) that appeared in the exteded cut of Snyder's Watchmen.

Children Of Men (2006)

USA/United Kingdom
directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
written by: Alfonso Cuarón, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Timothy J. Sexton + P. D. James (book)
starring: Clive Owen, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Charlie Hunnam
comment: 30th September, 2017

I will believe that all of "Children of men" is true and actually happened until I bump into an alive and undamaged Clive Owen somewhere. This film is eerily perfect in every way, and also odly prophetical. ♥♥♥

-"Ok, the Human Project gives this great, big dinner for all the scientists and sages in the world. They're tossing around theories about the ultimate mystery: why are all the women infertile? Why can't we make babies anymore? So, some say it's genetic experiments, gamma rays, pollution, same ol', same ol'. So, anyway, in the corner, this Englishman's sitting, he hasn't said a word, he's just tuckin' in his dinner. So, they decide to ask him, they say, "Well, why do you think we can't make babies anymore?" And he looks up at 'em, he's chewin' on this great big wing and he says "I haven't the faintest idea," he said, "but this stork is quite tasty isn't he?"

Poltergeist (1982)

USA
directed by: Tobe Hooper
written by: Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, Mark Victor
starring: Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke
seen: 28th September, 2017

I don't know if it's because I watched "Poltergeist" entirely out of its cultural context, but it seem to me  that only a few things really work in this film. It's basically just a copy of "The Exorcist", copied without that sense of "something" that made "The Exorcist" extraordinary, and a lot more B-movie-like. Half the dialogue feels like unintentional comedy and about a third of the material could be cut entirely, and it would only improve things. Some of those cult shots are cool, but given the film is two hours long (!) there is not quite enough of them. (My favourite part - the excavator working on a pool digging up the box with a burried bird.) The strike of me not liking majority of Spielberg's creations continues.

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Italy/USA
directed by: Sergio Leone
written by: Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci
starring: Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards
comment: 21st September, 2017

How much of a blasphemy would it be on my side to state that I would be much happier if the character of Claudia Cardinale disappeared from the film along with most of the story connected to her? Probably a lot. It would also indicate my secret worry that I actually don't understand at all what is this film trying to communicate and what's it all about. I understand the Harmonica plot line but not so much the rest, and the Harmonica story could have easily been told in half the final run-time. There is a couple of great scenes in there somewhere (my favourite being the opening McBain farm quail shooting and then of course the fateful memory), but as a whole the film leaves me quite unimpressed.

Leone's style brilliantly peaks in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". In "The West", however, my eyes see slow and undeniable decay into opulent autotelism. The excess of references to other films and predilection for unsubstantial "coolnes" of characters brings futility to places where I would normally wonder about the hardship of human destiny or what is the best temperature to enjoy revenge. Here I'm wandering if I'd missed something by taking a quick nap and if I'm by any chance getting morally disturbed by the film's romanticising of all those idealised troubles of the given time period.

And here we get to the part that breaks my heart the most: I have to express critical and almost negative feelings towards Morricone's music score. One or two compositions with the harmonica are utterly phenomenal, but none of the others speaks to me that much and they often tend to be too sentimental for my liking of for the story's brutal nature. And the fact that each of the main characters basically has their own theme song that plays every time they turn up almost seems like a parody of itself.

I gave this film a few occasions to prove itself but after several years I still think the same things that came to my mind after the first viewing. Hence I hereby declase this case closed and move on towards torturing my mind with other films, amen.

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

USA
written and directed by: Kenneth Lonergan
starring: Casey Affleck, Lucas Hedges, Kyle Chandler
seen: 19th September, 2017

-"Who you gonna shoot? You or me?"

As a person with my own trauma from the past I very much appreciate a story about a death of a parent that exclusively avoids the whole set of clichés and stupid patterns that are usually used in american films like this. I found the character of Patrick both extraordinarily written and acted, and if I were to say that somebody deserved and Oscar for this film, I would definitely point out Lucas Hedges. It is so refreshing to see a film teenager behave sensibly, distinctively and believably and process his emotions internally and not by "rebellious" shouting at others.

Casey Affleck has a place in my heart ever since "The Assassination Of Jesse James" and once again I am forced to admire his ability to express a wide spectrum of emotions without visibly doing anything. Sadly, my biggest problem with this film is tied to his character, and that is the most inappropriate visualisation of the central flashback. The film stays remarkably civil (given the themes it touches) before and after, but the cuts from a stationary Affleck into the tragic past are almost gutless emotional blackmail accompanied by conspicuous music. It sticks out from the overall stylistic concept, and not in a good way. It also signals that authors favour the past rather than the present (and I would wanted it the other way round) and prefer Affleck's relationship with his wife over his connection with his nephew (and I would wanted it the other way round).

On the other hand, I was very happy to see a reference to my favourite Freudian dream about the burning child, although it also kind of doesn't belong into a realistic story. In conclusion, "Manchester" seems to me like a properly hand-crafted product with some qualities, but after a while of thinking and feeling it doesn't contain anything that would make me want to see it again, think back to it in certain situations or admire it as a whole.

Spotlight (2015)

USA/Canada
directed by: Tom McCarthy
written by: Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer
starring: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Brian D’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci
seen: 12th September, 2017

"If the church had one neck, I would wring it." - Primordial, The Seed of Tyrants

Hell Or High Water (2016)

USA
directed by: David Mackenzie
written by: Taylor Sheridan
starring: Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Gil Birmingham
seen: 6th September, 2017

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are at it again and I love them. That's my foreword to this review.

"Hell Or High Water" is one of those films where every other and maybe simply just every shot looks like all the people in it are in fact posing for a poster, but since it's a clever meditative modern western about brother and brother, individuals and ancestors, inhabitants and land, I'm not only forgiving such behavior, I'm practically encouraging it and consider it a positive thing.

It's also been some time since I enjoyed some film's use of dialogue this much. It's not used to explain the plot like in most films these days, the subject matter is not the exact point, but it's still important that it was said. It gives vital information on the four lead men's characters, builds up the viewers sympathies for both duos and also creates subconscious fear of their inevitable confrontation. The film gives every emotion enough time to fully show its effect. It builds suspense slowly and gradually, without being unbearably long or dull. And it's still available to subvert expectations and surprise with its development.

I was already in love with Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham and Jeff Bridges (in that order) and to my astonishment I'm probably going to include Chris Pine in that list from now on. And I'm also in love with the fact that this film's visual key is both absolutely civil and ultimately genre-like.

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

USA
directed by: F. Gary Gray
written by: Andrea Berloff, Jonathan Herman
starring: Jason Mitchell, Corey Hawkins, O'Shea Jackson Jr.
seen: 4th September, 2017

Lets say I wouldn't mind that the film basicaly presents a fictional version of the band if it was honest in its message and stern in its film (art) erudice. And that it's not.

The prologue was extremely intriguing, but the film slowly stops instiling confidence and starts disintegrating from within. The film rolls in a weird kind of schizophrenia and a whole bunch of its elements is affected by this. My biggest issue with this is that the film ultimately doesn't know which (or whose) story it wants to tell. Because sometimes (basically in the first half) it looks like an interesting and necessary social-political contribution to the debate that prevails in U.S. to this day and is getting even hotter. I was the happiest for the boys and for the movie when they were doing their music and fighting for their right to do it.

However, this aspect burns out rather quickly and what remains is the most basic of biopics, including all the usual atributes: The manipulation of history and leaving out important people. Some portrayed people's involvement with the production and the subsequent suspicious selection of the events shown (the death of Dre's brother doesn't have much significance to the overall story but it gets prominent space, whereas his mistreatment of girlfriends is "a path the film-makers chose not to follow") . Mixing reverent respect for a fallen friend with deliberate changes to his character to better suit their chosen narrative, weakening and belittling him in the process.

And it's the character of Eazy-E that sets the tempo to this whole creation, he is the first one to be introduced and it's his life's arc that supplements the dramatic arc of the film. (And Jason Mitchell gives by far the best performance of the lot. When he watches the bilboards I'm so moved by his acting that I'm also crying, but the real Eazy-E was more "fuck you" than the shedding tears type, so how am I supposed to feel about that?) And next to his character's journey are these oddly crystal clear promos for Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, culminating in the epilogue and in the videos they chose to include about themselves - it's almost a bit ridiculous.

There is not too much to say about film craft, because the film is not trying to find and invent itself formally and stays entirely in the lines of the convention and of the usual. The end falls apart becacuse it's no longer about music and the trio is separated from each other. The film looses its starting ground and the pace stops almost dead. I've only seen the theatrical cut but I cannot imagine how could twenty more minutes sort this mess out, I feel it can only drag more and more, but who knows. The creators had the chance to at least work with the fact that the slowing and breaking of the story is mirroring the bands break-up or the loosening of their relationship, but it seems to me they don't consider the possibilty to work intentionally with the formal side of film-making. And it's the absolute lack of self-reflection and critical distance from the subject that makes the film popular as a product of the entertainment industry and will never allow it to break through in the art circles.

The Big Parade (1925)

USA
directed by: King Vidor
written by: Laurence Stallings, Harry Behn, Joseph Farnham
starring: John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Karl Dane, Tom O'Brien
comment: 27th August. 2017

-"Am I dead yet?"

The Big Parade offers a typical hollywood fairy tale "friendship, love, war" in such a pure and given the circumstances non-over-emotional extract that it's impossible to hold grudge against it. The distribution of events through the time line corresponds more with reading a novel than today's understanding of film stucture, but that's the case with many of the original blockbusters.

The machinery of war is depicted rather monumentally. The double exposures of the troops and explosions make the still alive marching soldiers already look like ghost who have no business with the world of the living and who will stop only after they reach the afterworld. The most heartwarming character for me was Karl Dane's Slim. I shed a reall tear or two reading the actor's actuall biography.

My favourite silent films tell different stories differently, but I will not go as far as my younger self to directly condemn this "other" mainstream point of view.

Moonlight (2016)

USA
written and directed by: Barry Jenkins
starring: Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris
seen: 20th August, 2017

I was so happy during the few opening minutes, believing that what's to follow truly is the best film of the year. A big man comes to check on his subordinate. They exchange some seemingly friendly words. A complex context and ironclad chain of command can be sensed behind those words. A man covered in sores and scabs begs for some dope and is both pitifuly pathetic and junkie-like apathetic. A little boy crosses their path, followed by silent bullies who throw stones at him. The boy hides in a derelict house, he's alone, he's in the dark, he can only hear the outside world. Two strong hands pry the boarded window open. The big man came to pull the boy out into the open and into the light.

The dynamics of this sequence is so captivating and alluring it almost hurts. And it also hurts because almost nothing that comes later in the film is nearly as good and definitely nothing tops it in its impact on me. It got me ready to see a strong story and instead I got the usual struggles of films with a passive protagonist (and devolved between three actors on top of that). Naomie Harris represents the only true constant and she gets so litte time and is so isolated from hero's life she has no space to properly cast her magic.

And my personal problem is that when I more or less adjust to the slow build-up to painful points of acts one and two and accept it as a norm, act three comes along and is build completely differently. I don't understand it so much that it doesn't influence my experience of the film in any way. I should go and watch Happy Together again.

Downfall (2004)

Der Untergang
Germany/Italy/Austria
directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel
written by: Bernd Eichinger + Joachim Fest (book), Traudl Junge (book), Melissa Müller (book)
starring: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Christian Berkel,
comment: 13th August, 2017

"All there is to know about Adolf Eichmann:

Eyes: medium
Hair: medium
Weight: medium
Height: medium
Distinguishing features: none
Number of fingers: ten
Number of toes: ten
Intelligence: medium

 What did you expect?
 Talons?
 Oversize incisors?
 Green saliva?
 Madness?"

-Leonard Cohen, Flowers for Hitler

La La Land (2016)

USA
written and directed by: Damien Chazelle
starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend
seen: 11th August, 2017

My oh my, when was the last time I thought Ryan Gosling might be the most talented leader of his acting generation? It was some good ten years ago and since then he's been picking the most puzzling projects to appear in. His expression completely lost the spectrum and depth of emotion I fell in love with in small art films like "The Believer" or unambicious blockbusters like "Murder by numbers".

Emma Stone, on the other hand, reminded my of a particular sequence from "Mulholland drive". Lynch also presents a struggling actress practising for an audition as his heroine. The viewer sees her in her kitchen with a script in her hand, overacting and overemoting in hopes of being convincing enough. Then she goes to meet the casting director and delivers such a concentrated, mature and intimate performance that everyone's jaws just drop and she gets the role immediately. In my eyes, Emma Stone stays overacting in the kitchen throught the whole La La Land. Maybe it's because she has to sing during most of her emotion-related plot points instead of acting in them. If the director wanted those two proceses to happen simultaneously, maybe he should have hired a performer comfortable with singing as much as with acting because Stone looks like someone who's been training just to imitate singing.

And I also thought that the lovers didn't really click together with ther acting approaches. Stone is being sarcastic and self-doubting while Gosling stays dead serious the whole time. Their shared scenes, even those where they're supposed to be in love with each other, seem to me like nervous conversations between two people who hardly know each other and won't talk about something real or deep out of fear of embarasing themselves. I miss some chemistry and intimacy between them, because elaborate dance numbers shot from afar cannot substitute closeness as a proof of love. And I don't understand the epilogue at all. It seems to show that neither of them grown emotionaly during the five years and that her marriage and motherhood means nothing to her since she would trade it in a second for a fantasy she herself proclaimed unfeasible.

One of the classic musical-related questions is "but normally people don't burst into song and dance, do they?" and this is the film where I'd say the question is relevant. Perhaps if it was a unique way of communication between the two I'd be satisfied, but the film opens with a musical number by a bunch of strangers unrelated to themselves or the story so it only indicates we are about to witness an exercise in futility. Exposition and details moving the story forward are usually revealed in dialogue (and that's my least favourite way of doing so) and all of the other formal whatnot is far from being functional in at least some way. And I am confused as to why are the songs of sadness and displeasure almost the same as the song of joy and exultation.

If I wanted a real actualization of a classical Hollywood musical, I would watch "Dancer in the dark" again. It uses nostalgic admiration with a modern perspective and formal experimenting to come up with something new and radical and the song and dance represent an actual communication amongst the characters (whereas in LLL it's a time filler without another purpose).

If I wanted a film set in a film studio lot that is an educated homage to "the golden age of cinema" actually acknowledging that time has passed betwen the golden age and the world of today, I'd watch the Coen brothers mastepiece "Hail, Caesar!" a hundred times more.

La La Land, as I see it, might work for audiences that ask for nothing else but simple entertainment (and have no genre-specific musical preferences), but it doesn't work for someone acquainted with history of cinema and familiar with a few classic films and a few revisons of said classics as well. Praise it with awards and call it a milestone is misleading at best.

-"How are you gonna be a revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist?"

Braveheart (1995)

USA
directed by: Mel Gibson
written by: Randall Wallace
starring: Mel Gibson, Angus Macfadyen, Brendan Gleeson, David O'Hara, Tommy Flanagan
seen 6th August, 2017

Through the whole screening I kept wondering: Do I think this is a good or a bad film? And I didn't find a definitive answer except that it's a bland one. I am thinking about it now, but by tomorrow or the day after tomorrow it will be gone from my mind and all will be well again.

Braveheart is insufferably long and goes into some spectacularly stupid soap opera details. Gibson said in one of his interviews that they had to make someone a good guy and someone a bad guy, to romanticize it a bit for the camera to handle the matter. And I am stating right here that camera can handle anything, if they only had the courage to not romanticize it. I am glad that they included a scene where we see people making a legend out of Wallace by manipulating the story with each telling. It would be even more swell if they could somehow voice the fact that they (the film-makers) are doing the same thing.

The film also seems to suffer by putting Mel Gibson (who was always too fanatical looking for my taste and seems too old for the way the character has been written) in the spotlight and keeping everybody else in shadows, with a few lines of dialogue and no screen presence of their own. That makes me sad because I find Brendan Gleeson, Tommy Flanagan and David O'Hara much more likeable and would like to see more of them. And there is nobody on the other side of the barricade to carry the film with his charisma. The actor portraying Edward. I seems too weak and fragile to be believably throwing people out of windows and imposing threat into hearts of men in general. The only one showing any potential is Angus Macfadyen, because he was born for crying and moral dilemmas, but thanks to the films overpopulation with so many characters he really has no proper space to shine.

Braveheart might have carried some kind of value in the time of its release, but I was four years old then and therefore can't evaluate it. Today the film seems worthless and rightfully placed amongst the worst to ever be awarded an Oscar.

Whiplash (2014)

USA
written and directed by: Damien Chazelle
starring: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons
seen: 4th August, 2017

It starts as a story about details, but it turns out it's being told by someone with a short attention span. Or I don't know how to pay the kind of attention this film requires. A big minus on my part probably is that I don't have a musical ear and I can find pleasure even in out of tune music as somebody once explained to me. Just this already means that a lot of the film's content goes past me. And maybe all of the film's content and its meaning goes right past me. Or I feel like it's a film about sticklers that wasn't made by a stickler and that makes me, a stickler, somewhat confused. Or maybe it's a film obout sticklers made by a stickler completely sticking with screenwriter's and film-maker's guidelines and that makes me, a non-stickler, miss a moment of real surprise and the courage to not engage with trivialities and show only the stuff relevant to the chosen theme. But it's the directors first big film so it's possible to have hopes that he learns to avoid cliches like anything with a girlfriend that an ambicious and callous bastard can be ambicious and callous towards or footballer cousins that mock him during a family dinner where nobody understands him and apparently nobody likes music.

An actor, who's obviously not nineteen, plays a nineteen year old kid. How am I supposed to believe those naive tears during an apology call to the girlfriend when they're being shed by a man obviously closer to being thirty that twenty? Sometimes the actuall age of an actor doesn't matter but this is the time when I believe it's quite important. And despite my nearly undying love for J.K. Simmons I have a big problem with his performance. Either the role of the teacher is just badly written (and it probably is, those wtf switches between talking sweet with a little girl in the sunset and twating in a cold room with blue overtones two seconds later are put together so clumsily I can't even laugh about it - and a sense of humour is something this film misses quite essentialy). Or it's just badly cast and acted (Which is probably also true, because J.K. has the same expression in his eyes in both modes and his voice and body language reminds me of someone following instructions rather than someone giving a performance worthy of praise and prizes. I was confused during my first showing of the film, because sometimes it felt like a too much of a parody to be taken seriously and I wasn't sure what was I supposed to feel according to the author. When I played some of the practise scenes and the final confrontations without sound I couldn't tell what was emotionally going on. He looks the same when intimidating his student and being swept away with the music. To me, that's not a sign of a good performance nor a good supervisor.)

In my ideal world, given that owning a time machine is a thing, this movie would be directed by Steve McQueen during his "Hunger" days. That was also a debut. His movie would consist of like six informational story scenes and the rest would be made of FLESH. That would be a movie I could respect.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

USA
directed by: John Badham
written by: Norman Wexler
starring: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Donna Pescow
seen: 19th July, 2017

-"You want a dream girl? Then go to sleep and have a nightmare."

This gave me a really strong feeling of watching a "Rebel Without A Cause" actualization. Since 1955, the line of what the makers can show has moved drastically, but the basic feeling that it's all staged and fake remains. For example, the pub gang fight is super funnily pretend tough and you can clearly see that nobody actually punches anybody and that they're all being very careful. Yet the boys leave the field with textbook open wounds and bright red blood all over their faces, making the film look more like a parody.

On the other hand, and I wasn't expecting this at all, I found Travolta's character really interesting, complex and yes, after everything I've said so far, believable. The screenplay was overall clumsy, but I think both Tony and I were educated during this trip down the rabbit hole.

And I was being a good girl and didn't let my opinion on all of that music to shape my opinion about this film because A) Bee Gees will always be the shy boys singing Massachusetts in my mind and B) when this particular disco music tries to express the darker sides of life, it, without any doubt on my part, fails spectacularly.

Under The Skin (2013)

United Kingdom/USA/Switzerland
directed by: Jonathan Glazer
written by: Walter Campbell, Jonathan Glazer + Michael Faber (book)
starring: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Pearson, Kryštof Hádek
seen: 15th July, 2017

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (If I've ever heard the devil's music.) ♥

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

USA
directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu
written by: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo
starring: Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton
seen: 22nd June, 2017

Very uncomfortably suggestive story about a mental illness, insane mostly because no person close to Birdman notices it or is aware of it. That is, to me, the main source of the titular ignorance, although I fail to see anything virtuous about it at all.

The intense shadowing of his main character doesn't allow the director to put much other work into the fictional world around Birdman, and also forces him to condense many personal crises of many different people to one time and one place, which is always a bit suspicious and a bit too convenient for my taste. But: The overall tempo is so riveting that I'm immediately forgetting my objections and forgiving them in order to enjoy more and more of this frantic dance.

The actors really shine here. I was even impressed by Ed Norton's performance, and he's an actor I almost loathe in his earlier roles. Recently I say him take up more comedic roles and in my eyes that suits him better. Here, he's almost a caricature of himself and marvelous at that. The camera work and musical arrangements are coming straight from my soul, or should I say straight for my soul to tear it into a lot of tiny pieces. And that's why I am so sorry to say that I was gravely disappointed by the ending.

The film forecasts a lot of notions as it goes along and most of these notions eventually turn out to be right, or the truth. I would even say that we know everything right from the first shots. There's no place for mysteries or fake hopes. The key to this storytelling is intensity. That climaxes during the finale on the theatre stage. And what follows is, in my eyes, a demeaning epilogue to all the madness we witnessed before. It's predictable and it talks way too much. It's more like a draft of what the final scene should look like, a draft that still needs a lot more careful work to throw out the ballast and keep only the shots that are necessary and the words that are necessary. The awful newspaper waving is a drag that even the eyes of Emma Stone cannot balance out.

 -"A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing."

Easy Rider (1969)

USA
directed by: Dennis Hopper
written by: Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Terry Southern
starring: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson
comment: 4th June, 2017

This movie seems mute to me. And I find it odd because emptied narration usually speaks to my heart. The movies my heart loves are seemingly empty and uneventful and that means something. This movie is empty and aimless and I see nothing behind the curtain. It's possible that my favourite creators wouldn't be able to make their art without seeing Easy Rider first. But I feel nothing watching it. This whole creation seems so random. It feels like the only value it holds is for those who made it because they lived through it. I have to quote an unspecified fictional character's comment about porn: "When I am not the one doing it, I don't see how I could enjoy it."

Paisan (1946)

Paisa
Italy
directed by: Roberto Rossellini
written by: Federico Fellini + Klaus Mann (book)
starring: Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Maria Michi
comment: 5th April, 2017

From the perspective of a modern moviegoer, I'd say that if this movie wanted to be more timeless, they'd have to work differently with sound and music. But that would just pile on on the undeniable impact it already has on the viewer.

When it comes to Italian war films, my favourite is Monicelli's The Great War. That's because it's a bit different genre, it's more thought through and manipulated. The rawness and spontaneity of Paisan makes it exeptional amongst "typical" war films, but the construction of the storyline separates it very clearly from documentaries.

However immensely impressive, in the end Paisa is still proving that reality/truth is an intangible thing that can never be truly mediated through a film camera.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Italy/France
directed by: Federico Fellini
written by: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Brunello Rondi, Ennio Flaiano
starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Walter Santesso, Anita Ekberg
comment: 1st April, 2017

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy." -Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Duck Soup (1933)

USA
directed by: Leo McCarey
written by: Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman, Nat Perrin
starring: The Four Marx Brothers, Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres, Louis Calhern
comment: 31st March, 2017

I think someone or something is keeping the source of amusement in this film as a secret from me. Some gags are comprehensible and functional, some feel a bit cheap to me and some are on their way to upset me - but what if I simply just don't get them? My auxiliary chart is set up this way: if it reminds me of Buster Keaton, it's surreal humour, if it resembles Chaplin, it's humanistic humour, and Harold Lloyd stands for family fun. And I have no idea where on my chart should I pin these brothers.

I feel like I don't understand the basis of their anarchy, if anarchies can even have bases. What is their starting point and where to they aim? Do they have moral high ground? Are they being political or are they just manufacturing fun? For example, Chaplin's The Great Dictator answers all my questions, whereas Duck Soup leaves my analytical little brain confused. Are they Monty Pythons of their time or are they more like predecessors of Sacha Baron Cohen? Did the viewer at the time of film's release understand their hidden intentions or there weren't any and I'm not supposed to wonder about these things? My oh my.

And by the way: Why are all the women wearing only tiny dressing gowns, visible bras and dresses with maximum cleavage showing? Because, you know, the men are only ever showing off their knees. And nobody gropes them in silence. Less underwear, more horseshoes, please.

Arrival (2016)

USA
directed by: Denis Villeneuve
written by: Eric Heisserer + Ted Chiang (story)
starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
seen: 28th March, 2017

Well, all right, the one main twist is rather good and I appreciate it. But I am not capable of perceiving Amy Adams as a positive heroine. Jeremy Renner is completely unutilized. And the same goes for the potential of this story. I would wish for the screenplay/tempo/message to be much more resolute, stark, definite, adamant. And put together with entirely different music, dear god. Away with all the shots of Louise waking up from her "dreams". I would maybe allow them to keep the very first waking up, but why do they continue to rehash the scheme without adding anything new?

I sometimes have trouble differentiating between commenting on what I saw and what I wish I would saw. In this case, I saw a series of meaningless, trendily aestheticized shots without justification. Not a single relationship shown on screen seemed believable. And here I am being negative again, so I guess I'll just stop and move on towards films that make me happy.

Rushmore (1998)

USA
directed by: Wes Anderson
written by: Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson
starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Luke Wilson
comment: 13th February, 2017

Of all the films by Wes Anderson I understand this one the least, and that's after repeted viewings during a period of many years. My standard emotional procedure with his other films (The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom) was usually that I liked them with my head after the initial screening, and only with some time passing I started to like them with my heart too.

But with Rushmore I didn't even get to the first phase. It's probably because I wasn't able to connect with the protagonist and identify what was the struggle he encountered and defeated (presumably, since I didn't get it.) His emotions are a complete and utter mystery to me. I can't tell a difference between his honest reactions and his manufactured, planned and acted out responses. Does he do what he thinks he should be doing or is he doing what he really wants to do? And here lies my problem with the film, because everything he does seems false to me, and it shouldn't, should it? And when a film gives me no sense of baseline at all, I am lost.

Gone With The Wind (1939)

USA
directed by: Victor Fleming, George Cukor
written by: Sidney Howard + Margaret Mitchell (book)
starring: Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Rand Brooks
comment: 12th February, 2017

I have a big problem with empathizing, especially with Scarlett. I certainly do not agree with opinions that she's the most thoroughly examined character to ever grace a silver screen, as some say. But when I shake this mini-feeling of grudge off, I have to admit that I was rather impressed with Gone With The Wind.

Some matters connected to the war are being presented so roughly that if they were to appear in a realistic (I use this word because I cannot think of a better one) film, they would be very, very rough and Dagmar would probably cry. The most powerful moments for me were the crying flautist, the priest administering the last rites during cannon fire and the company of singing slaves marching to the front. The trouble is that they are presented almost as nothing more than mere background noise behind the main story. And the main story just doesn't seem too interesting to me.

I already mentioned my skirmish with Scarlett. When she's confronted with prudish society, wearing her crimson dress, I admire the dress, but not the character. When shes's flirting with lads at the picnic, I admire her resting bitch face from an aesthetic point of view, but not as what it means in her current situation. She does not show much character maturation during the course of the four-hour long story and she's having cathartic moments at points where I don't understand them. I have not fallen for charms of Rhett Butler either, and Ashley is criminally underdeveloped, both by the actor and the screenwriter. Olivia de Havilland is the bright exception. I think she was simply divine as Melanie, in fact she was so good that it didn't even bother me that the part was written quite foreseeably as "nothing more" than a complete opposite of Scarlett.

I will not venture into analysing moral grounds of the story, perhaps because I'm almost sure I don't have the proper erudition. But it seems to me that the film itself is slowly replacing things like moral grounds with social primness and love affairs.

The Wrestler (2008)

USA/France
directed by: Darren Aronofsky
written by: Robert D. Siegel
starring: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood
comment: 6th February, 2017

There must be someone who constantly wishes to kill oneself sitting inside Clint Mansell's head. I have no idea who sits inside Darren Aronofsky's head. And I think I'm partially in love with the one talking from inside the bleached head of Mickey Rourke. And I would be much happier if the whole film was only about him walking from place to place instead of this syd-fieldian story with periodical comings and goings of manufactured plot points.

The film's structure is very much affected by this (and in my eyes that means tainted (and now for brackets inside brackets: the fact that this is the screenwriter's debut explains this)) and it even leaks into the dialogue a couple of times. When he talks to the stripper for the first time and explains his plans, he says: "Who knows. I put on a good show..." And I'm already crying, because I'm so moved by the plasticity of his character and the hopefulness of his voice and her pierced nipples and everything. But then he continues by saying: "Could be the thing that gets me back on top." And I stop crying immediately and start being angry, because that's not the character talking, that's the screenwriter explaining his intentions.

And one last thing I would like to complain about is the daughter. For one thing, I don't think she's particularly well written - out of all the characters she's the one most obviously behaving the way she is because of the needs of the story arc and not because she's driven by a psychology of a well thought-out character. My second point is that Evan Rachel Wood doesn't possess the necessary talent or charisma to carry the daughter out of the obvious paper construct into the real breathing world.

All and all, I apparently like the idea, it definitely looks like Darren tried his best to suppress his ego, but personally I would hire Gus Van Sant to direct this kind of script.

Sunset Blvd. (1950)

USA
directed by: Billy Wilder 
written by: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder
starring: Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, William Holden
comment: 6th January, 2017

Well, I'm rather confused, and most of all by William Holden's part. (I would very much like to see the film with the original choice for this role - Montgomery Clift. I saw a picture of him and an older actress and his lover at the time, Libby Holman, and immediately I was under the impression that a much more unique film was stolen from me.) The living character of Holden's is a cynic and an opportunist, but his dead voice brings no other qualities, or I fail to recognize them, so it only doubles the informations I'm already seeing. I would like to see the film without the voiceover. Overall gravitas and eloquence would skyrocket, I imagine.

I actually compared Sunset Blvd. with A Streetcar Named Desire in my head a couple of times. The films were released closely to each other, they both deal with their heroines descending into madness, and their final scenes are almost identical, including the two memorable quotes proclaimed while already deranged. I also read that Billy Wilder knows nothing about further fate of Norma Desmond, except for the fact that she went insane for good, while Tennessee Williams said that Blanche flourished in the mental institution, she got the attention she needed and went on to achieve life's happiness. This also illustrates the difference I feel between these two works of art and while I enjoyed Sunset Blvd. and have respect for its "message", I would always prefer the Streetcar over it. Because when I try to imagine that the whole of "Streetcar" gets narrated by Stanley Kowalski's bland and informative voiceover, it instantly ages the film by a few decades and loses it's modern feeling. And that's how I perceive Sunset Blvd.

The Matrix (1999)

USA
written and directed by: The Wachowskis
starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne
comment: 5th Januray, 2017

-"Do you think that's air you're breathing now?"

If there is a film equivalent of a motivational postcard depicting sunset with a scribble reading "Which one of you bitches wants to dance?", then it must be The Matrix. Because there is no spoon. It's a fairy tale conveying that everything can be alright in the end, complete with a wise fox offering helpful advice, a horse with golden mane that can fly and help you achieve your mission and a crossroad where a hero must choose which path will most likely lead to the water of life. And never before and never after was the unchanging expression of Keanu Reeves used so efficiently and ostentatiously. I will, probably forever, love everything about this film, including the fact that the steak Cypher enjoys so much looks absolutely revolting to me.

MASH (1970)

USA
directed by: Robert Altman
written by: Ring Lardner Jr. + Richard Hooker (book)
starring: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman
comment: 3rd January, 2017

It needs to be said that the subsequent TV series was intensely watched (and worshiped) in my household throughout my entire childhood, so the series will always be a golden standard in my eyes, no matter what the circumstances are. And while I'm saying things that need to be said I better say that I don't think I properly understood the film. I mean, I am perceiving what is going on, and I sense what were the creators' intentions, but I don't get why they chose to approach the subject the way they did and sometimes it's even a bit uncomfortable for me to watch it.

The song "Suicice is painless" sums it up nicely. It's a bit scary without context, it might seem harmless and catchy, but the longer I think about it the more silly and detrimental it seems - mainly because of its lyrics, the interpret's uncaring tone of voice and absence of healthy sarcasm anywhere near it. The song's use during "the last supper" somehow betters its reputation in my eyes, beucase it gets the much needed, even though unspoken, commentary from film's creators.

So yes, some parts of the film can be entrancing, but the whole thing does not work for me. My favourite anti-war satires look differently. Right in the year 1970 sprouts one of my favourites, Catch-XXII, and it beats MASH by a lot. I can understand their work with absurdity of war with my mind and with my heart and both are happy. I miss Altman's points completely. He's humiliating Hot Lips to reveal her hidden fragility, what?!