DaViD´82

A stylish cinema release and a dreamlike cast in an excellent redneck gangster film capturing a specific sultry atmosphere. Actually, the whole thing only reaches the final twenty minutes, because instead of a build-up, it gradually fizzles out; and that to a complete loss.

The reform of the Camorra and its journey back to the top in one of the best mafia movies of all times. This applies to the first half which focuses on relationships and takes place inside the prison and one town and is mainly about the professor (the phenomenal Ben Gazzara who interpreted this role identically to Toni Servillo, thirty years later, in his role of Andreotti). Less so to the second half which is about the organization as such and the Camorra begins to break into global drug trafficking and dabble in high-level politics, influencing state-funded monster contracts. If you have read Saviano’s “Gomorra", you probably have a very good and precise idea of what the second part of this picture is about. The problem is that because of moving into this ground, the focus becomes so wide and ambitious that the characters are moved to the background, it starts to be very brief and simplified and so the viewer loses the unbounded enthusiasm that he had at the start. The problem is this feature-movie cut; I believe that the TV five-hour version doesn’t suffer from this, because the individual sections are perfection in themselves; they just don’t hold together very well. In any case, although this was Tornatore’s debut, this is the first of his many timeless masterpieces.

Aaron Sorkin is cool in the end, although his idea of reporting has absolutely nothing in common with our staple news, because with Sorkin the reporters actually want to inform about something meaningful (don’t confuse this with impartial reporting, because here we have tendentious news with a more Republican bias for the “white man", full of old-fashioned, lofty ideals). Simply a classic Sorkin movie with all the trimmings, this time set in a news environment. If you expect numerous nice (or nasty) characters who, despite a breakneck tempo, are not silent even for one second, but in fact aren’t rambling and really have something to say, then... Your expectations are quite right. But there’s a hitch: it isn’t easy for an actor to manage Sorkin’s moralizing machine-gun-mouth dialogs and not everyone can deliver them without sounding like a parody of themselves. And you have to accept the simple fact that although Sorkin is exceptionally talented and capable dialog/monolog writer, he is only an average storyteller and so it has become a tradition to expect both polished dialogs but also impaired storylines. And in addition to this we can expect an absence of modern guise (not meant visually) or rather this is an old-school series; especially in the superfluous, but bearable relationship part. Season two is just like the first. Of course, there are areas for improvement. It has a storyline that runs throughout the season which is refreshing and puts some excellent characters in front of the camera (and makes for a spin-off for Rebecca Halliday). Yes, in the end there is less room for relationship management escapades and when they occur, they are often dealt with more tastefully and gracefully. The final third season then incomprehensibly dumps the best and sturdiest theme in story material terms (as early as episode two!) in favor of a fan-pleasing melodramatic homage to relationships “him with her and her with him" (or: who didn’t yearn for the slowest and most painful possible death for the Jim/Maggie duo must be a saint, making Jesus look like the epitome of maliciousness in comparison). Plus it stops the interestingly kicked off theme of “the stuffy old media versus a new, predatory media with no scruples, where both sides are equally right as they are wrong" in its tracks using personal tirades that don’t even play out (Reese, Elliot and even Neal). And it’s like that pretty much the whole season/series as such. S1: 4/5 S2: 5/5 S3: 3/5

A pilot to test whether it would attract any viewers. A pilot that is the weakest link of the later series. With it’s rather small budget, some characters are played by other actors than in later episodes. In terms of the story, this is more about how the two got together, with the murder of a homosexual biker being shunted off to the sidelines. It’s definitely good, primarily thanks to the final half-hour. Up until then, it seems like a slightly above-average episode of a run-of-the-mill crime series. The final judgment will have to wait for the first regular episode.

In a way, it's tremendously sad when a kind of a by-the-numbers short has a duo of the most interesting characters Marvel has ever come up with (so far).

There are enough ideas and quotes for three films in this "feature-length Monkey Island without Guybrush Threepwood", but it's still more of a product than a heartfelt film from Aardman. This doesn't change the fun or the quality, even though this time it's aimed more at a younger audience.

The theme here is crying out to be one, but this is no ordinary emotionally blackmailing family soppy movie about a father finding the tear-filled way to his cute little kids. On the contrary, most of the time he’s having trouble handling itself. And they skip the first year following the sudden disappearance and so we miss the phase of mournful tears. However, a year later those around you expect that you pull yourself together, start being a good father, move on, stop wallowing in sorrow and they no longer tolerate explosions of grief and self-recrimination. What else is left but to try for a new beginning? Some of the storylines just seem to peter out and mainly the middle part is a little long-winded, but at the same time it seems all the while that this is how it probably happened. And although (or because) it looks all cold and inapproachable, at the end we witness one of the most moving scenes of recent times.

The almost thirty-year long history of bad blood between two clans that through constantly escalating battles of frogs and mice had grown into an open conflict of weapons and legal action on the borders of West Virginia and Kentucky that could have easily ended up as a second civil war... All this in the pleasant atmosphere of a dirty and grimacing TV miniseries that turns into one big concert of acting by a range of old pardners (Berenger, Boothe, Paxton, Vibert) and mainly Costner’s big comeback in one of the best westerns of the past few years (or decades?). And this applies to all three episodes. Perhaps just I wish the ending of episode one weren’t so “Capulet-Montague".

There are several (unacknowledged) remakes of film classics every year, but this attempt will not get lost among them. Not only does it stand on its own, it is not even pointless, which was, is and will be the biggest curse of all remakes.

The third best/worst of the five Bournes to date. It’s greatest stumbling block is the heavy-handed start which is not solved until the main duo paired up; or rather until a little room was given to the excellent Rachel Weisz who steals the show from the disturbing scene in the laboratory onward. The non-existent conclusion doesn’t make things any better, but even so it lures you rather than driving you away in disgust.