DaViD´82

If you know the duo Penn & Teller, then at the beginning you can’t help thinking that this would be a spoof documentary, because this magic-debunking duo bring us this documentary “about revealing the mystery behind Vermeer’s exquisite style through a record of an experiment by a talentless billionaire inventor who has a crazy theory that would fundamentally change the opinion about the works of one of the greatest painters of all time, and at the same time, this talentless billionaire inventor is building a movie set in his garage in Texas so that, after several months of intricate work on a reproduction of The Music Lesson, he can prove his theory " isn’t very trust inspiring. Especially if this is all about filming the painting of a picture, therefore basically a very thankless and boring activity. You might easily expect them to be making fun of the audience, but... But no, it’s a real documentary and so good that it tempts even the greatest daubers among us to pull out some black and white photos, buying a dental mirror on a stick, brushes, paints and to try if it really works. In any case, apart from potential (re)discovery of an interesting painting by numbers-type technique, this is mainly the powerful story of Tim Jenison who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice a good few years of his life doing incredibly meticulous work with an unsure result. Without a grant. Although with a couple of billion tucked away.

Calling this British Fargo is as misleading as it is oversimplifying, but you know how it is... No smoke without fire. The mutual similarity lies not just in the concept itself or in disruption of the everyday routine of a back-water town, but also in the fact that this cuts deep into all of the characters who behave “like your neighbors". And this is why the convincing events “the evil inside each of us" is so chillingly disconcerting. It was brave (and controversial) to change the style and the genre during the final two episodes when the uncompromising psycho crime thriller turns into an uptight, intimate psychological drama where there is no room for the crime storyline. But it doesn’t matter, because this is not fundamentally about the crime as such, but the characters caught up in its whirlpool. | S1: 5/5 | S2: 5/5 |

Ninety minutes of pure "Hitchcock-like" genre enthusiasm. Why then only three stars? Because, after all, it has not only ninety minutes, but also a final fifteen minutes that leaves even an unsound mind standing still; let alone a sound one. From the speech on, everything is wrong. Everything.

Hollywood’s dogs and cats baked a cake where they wanted to include everything and everyone across universes, time, and space. And as a result, there is no space or time on the screen for anything or anyone. Everything is so rushed that what was the biggest strength of X-Men until now, completely vanishes. I mean the exploration of the characters, their development, their fears, their relationships with each other and the resulting emotions. Here, everyone is invariably relegated to the roles of emotionless puppets reciting big words, interrupted here and there by some mandatory blockbuster action. Moreover, the action is only there for its own sake; which doesn't mean it's bad in itself because it's not. Singer bit off more than he could chew, which is even more of a shame because now and then there is a flash of genius (mostly thanks to the cast), that shows how good it could have been if someone in charge realized that less is sometimes much more.

Of all the pictures about the malfunctioning of a penal system with an approach of “the stronger dog gets to fuck", this is the strongest in the genre dog park. And more disturbing (and therefore more powerful) is that it is about young punks who need a firm hand, uncompromising routine and discipline, but not at the price of bullying, humiliation, rape and other similar cute things. The despair of this vicious circle of “rebellious brats versus jailers with a chip on their shoulder" (the supreme scene from that point of view is Archer’s friendly chat with one of the screws), where the penal system becomes a parody of itself to such an extent that it breeds and teaches what it was created to combat, and perhaps this has never been captured on film so realistically, depressingly, chillingly while not moralizing.

Waiting for Godot... Uh, no, Godzilla. Which wouldn't matter if it was waiting for “a battering" and not a "wannabe father figure Spielberg"; after all, with its focus on the action side "from the subjective point of view of human ants who worship the family above all", standing on insinuation and the unseen rather than full frontals, it is perhaps too reminiscent of Jaws or War of the Worlds. This is mainly due to the overuse of this approach, because what is pleasantly hidden and inspiring in the first half, becomes tiresome in the second half to the point that one loses interest, because if you are merely insinuating for the hundredth time but nothing happens, and for the hundredth time again at the last possible moment… nothing happens, then what’s the point of it all? Just a filler plot and shallow characters, more filler, more filler, Watanabe explaining "what the hell is happening" and all interlaced with "I have to return to my family and although I will not be able to see Godzilla, her roars will be heard constantly" in a thousand and one variations, and without at least one interesting character. To make matters worse, in this scheme that takes itself so deadly serious, this otherwise likable classic that honors the concept of a heroic monster is like Godzilla in a china shop. After all, when the best and the most playful parts of the movie are the opening credits, there must be something wrong.

Almost a true-to-life-size copy of The Fugitive, from the story, through division of roles and character types, to length of show. And it’s a copy that is worse than The Fugitive in every way. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that this is a bad copy; it just rather dime a dozen. British TV genre series often stress the “everyday and down-to-earth" and Prey is no exception. Unfortunately, this approach is rather detrimental, because with a thriller about a falsely accused fugitive for whom walking down the street is nerve-rackingly tense because “what if that guy walking toward me recognizes me and reports me", then you can expect constant tension and endless paranoia when you don’t know who (if there is somebody) to trust. Instead, dozens of minutes are spent dealing with the every-day side where it is immediately clear where it is leading and how it will get there. However, as of the second episode, it turns into a classic manhunt movie, which suddenly starts to work (apart from the dumb finale) and, unsurprisingly, this is due to Simm, who was born for the role of a “nice guy from next door who just needs to look at you once, and you soon find yourself taking your gold watch off and pulling out your wallet". Season two is completely self-standing, although some characters do return. The man hunted this time isn’t Simm, but it’s hard to find a better replacement than his long-term acting partner, Glenister. It’s him in the role of an honest prison guard whose daughter is kidnapped and is forced to free one of the prisoners who carries this series along. It’s all just slightly better than season one, but it has its own considerable problems. Mainly it is so clearly traced out and transparent that it has no surprised and rather than three forty-five minute episodes, they should have made it as two hour-long episodes. | S1: 3/5 | S2: 3/5 |

A prime example of the old fashioned family adventure movie; they don’t make them like this anymore. And also a new adaptation of Belle and Sebastian that doesn’t lose points for deviating from the original and shifting setting to the time of German occupation. At least for most of the time, because it’s mainly still about them two. Unfortunately the final “winter" quarter went a different way than it should have done and the so far very convincingly incorporated wartime milieu suddenly starts looking very farfetched, in a way that doesn’t fit the established style of a big mountain friendship “that endures".

Jack Bauer’s comeback would make greater sense if only the authors learned from the mistakes in the “original" series. But they said a firm NO and so everything stays as it always was. Instead of concentrating on Jack, we again keep on wasting time with white collars at their computers again spouting would-be technical claptrap about nothing that we heard in the past series about a hundred times, again there is some political milieu and... And simply everything. It doesn’t seem that the authors have anything more to say on top of what had been said in the past and so they recycle what worked the best in the best seasons. But it must be said that they have a great sales pitch and so it soon picks up an incredible tempo. It’s just a shame that the tempo doesn’t endure and in the final quarter it runs out of breath which irks the more if you already know how it works in a 24 and so it’s obvious who and how is going to betray/die and so on. The very end wouldn’t be that bad if the whole series didn’t find itself again at the point where it had already been (not only) once before. We simply need to come to terms with the fact that it’s “just" the ninth series with all the good and the bad from the previous eight seasons. Nothing more and nothing less.

Where is the happy medium between scientific ethics, personal responsibility toward yourself, truth and politics? A drama about the investigation of one of the greatest tragedies of the space program at the very end of the Cold War by an independent committee where each member has its own more or less hidden agenda. It clings to reality and also meets the criteria for a good conspiration thriller; behind-the-scenes politics, secretly delivered notes, lost notes, uncooperative management... It’s all here. And although this is primarily about the investigation of the causes of the accident, it doesn’t nearly stop there.