J*A*S*M

I have a clear subjective aesthetic problem with this film. Even though The Book of Life is generally praised for its beautiful and quality animation (which probably is objectively true), for me it was a painful experience. It’s just an awful mess. And I also don’t understand who it was made for. The story isn’t interesting, let alone cute or funny. I can imagine someone taking their kids to cinema… poor little things, after a couple of minutes they will fall asleep in boredom. Probably it’s targeted at the Hispanic community in the US, but I don’t know… The Book of Life does have some strong Mexican vibes, but that’s the only thing I could find.

The premise is so great that I fancy writing a long review about it so it would attract as many people as possible and this excellent old British sci-fi film would get the recognition it deserves. But that would mean spoiling the surprise. Unearthly Stranger is a minimalistic, paranoid story where an unknown villain liquidates space scientists in an original way. To a certain extent, it’s predictable, and also naive in some details. Nevertheless, for the fans of old-school sci-fi it’s a must-see :)

A couple of points for the action, zero points for the story. The problem is that it has some scenes that are clearly meant to be funny, together with scenes that are mean to be really serious. Unfortunately, the serious moments are so stupid (Keanu cradling his dead dog to the sounds of sad music) that I couldn’t help but laugh. But that stylish action scene in the club is enough to make me like this film and make me willing to give it an above-average rating of six points out of ten.

I almost no longer remember Paul Solet’s début, Grace, and I feel it won’t take long for Dark Summer to follow the same fate. That said, I’m actually rather satisfied with it. It’s a small, forgettable genre film, but it fascinated me in a certain way, it has a weird type of darkness. We don’t get to know much about the characters, the reason for their behaviour gets lost in the dark, the scary scenes are almost hypnotic, the sound design is interesting, the leading female is weird. I also liked the climax and the explanation of the paranormal activity, even if they stumble a couple of times along the way.

This comment will include a fairly major spoiler, so before watching this film, you’ll have to make do with the fact that Out of the Dark is a skilfully shot and an at times pleasantly atmospheric horror-mystery snack. If you fancy an undemanding genre exercise that will stick to the clichés no matter what, and will do exactly what is expected from it, then this one’s not a bad choice. The ghosts of the aboriginal children are scary (though we don’t get see them too often), the setting in a Colombian small town is nicely exotic, and the haunted villa is quite pretty. It’s a pity that the creators committed one of the biggest fuck-ups that can be committed in an unambitious horror flick – in the middle the story, in fact, even before the “tense” climax – to reveal that the presumed evil isn’t so evil after all. How am I, the viewer, supposed to deal with that? The fear and tension have gone to the shitter, I won’t philosophise about it because the film so far didn’t tune me on the wave of relativistic art, and I won’t be affected, either. The film started so nicely, and equally nicely it fell apart.

It starts as a pretty fun B-movie, but the moment the creators ran out of money (and the plot moves from the streets to a church), it turns into a borefest where a couple of young adults deal with their relationship with God and with each other, which is terribly annoying. Really, the first half hour was a pleasant surprise, but by the end I was only raising my eyebrows in disapproval.

A watchable forest survival. Nice setting, summer atmosphere, moody score. I would reach for the 3*, even if the characters’ behaviour becomes increasingly stupid with time (they all could’ve killed each other like a hundred times, but the film would have ended too soon). But, on top of that, it clearly rips-off scenes from similar movies, in particular Eden Lake, without bringing anything new, like nothing at all of its own, to turn a blind eye to that. It’s enough that it’s already an unoriginal and uncreative, modern commercial horror flick, but please, don’t ruin the indie scene with this kind of decadence.

I had plenty of fun, but This Is the End was much better. Seth Rogen’s style of humour is certainly not the most sophisticated, but his comedies deliver the dialogue exchanges and the faecal jokes in such a smart way that they are very funny and as effective as possible. Sometimes that’s the case here, too, but several times I felt that it was an improv one take. This is the impression I got from the quality of the humour and not a statement that I can substantiate with anything. I also had a problem with James Franco’s character, who at times goes so full-retard to the point that he’s obviously not full-retard.

Pleasant, cute, funny, non-conflicting. My favourite was the scene when they’re watching Carpi’s The Thing.

Nightcrawler was exactly what I was expecting it to be, which is basically the only complaint I can have. It was missing at least one moment of bigger surprise or shock. Basically, I thought that Gyllenhaal’s self-confident sociopath (all the good things that’ve been said about his performance are true) would go a little further in his quest for career advancement. It’s a critique of an awful era and the lack of morals, where only viewership numbers have value and ethics are pushed aside. “I will never want from you anything that I wouldn’t do myself.” Impressive, dark, captivating, but I think Lumet’s Network cuts deeper. 9/10