Lima

I’ve once read an ironic comment saying that actors are the best paid prostitutes in the world. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but this film is a clear example of it. What they say here in the second half with a stony face, completely serious and full of pathos, is enough to put down even a self-deprecating masochist. And most of all, I felt sorry for Morgan Freeman. His participation, pushed through by the producers just to tick off at least one famous name, is reduced to the one clueless, apathetic expression, when it's quite obvious that Morgan has nothing to play with, and one annoyed expression of a few seconds that doesn’t make any difference. The American president here is a paragon of honesty, bravery, and an awareness of the gravity of his position when you're just waiting for the shit to really hit the fan. All the lines that fly through the air between Butler, the military staff and the terrorist boss are the essence of idiocy, and the slow-motion scenes with an American flag riddled with bullet holes, the 'Cerberus code' and the heroic cry of "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America!" will strike you as a major infringement on the audience's taste. During the first 45 minutes or so things go well, thanks to the old-fashioned 80s style action, with terrorists and bodyguards falling like flies (I hereby salute Arnold), but then the ghost of Chuck Norris possessed all the actors and especially the writers, and everything goes to shit in the blink of an eye. Thanks God for Schwarzenegger’s Commando, compared to this film, it’s a funny easy-going comedy full of wisecracks.

All pleasant memories of this film in the future will only be connected with the first half, when Clark is finding his place in the world, discovering his abilities and some emotions are thrown in. The rest of the runtime can be described in two words: Digital mess. Nevertheless, Henry Cavill is a likeable guy and the real Superman, I wouldn't be opposed to a more sober sequel with him. The potential is there.

It starts as intoxicating kitsch, then it becomes a tiresome mess stumbling on both feet. As far as gimmicky camera tricks and image wizardry go, Luhrmann is confident, but he fails in simple meaningful storytelling and in trying to get under the skin of the characters. I've mentioned kitsch – all those lavish parties make you feel like you're looking at a big garden dwarf, festooned with colourful ribbons and flashing light bulbs. But when it comes to feelings, it's like a shallow story in a girlie magazine, kind of plucking the daisy "He likes you, he likes you not, he likes you, he likes you not, he'll leave with you, he won't leave with you.....". Thank goodness for at least two things: Edgerton's manly Buchanan, the only full-blooded character in the entire panopticon, and the reunion scene between Gatsby and Daisy – the only moment in the entire film where you can feel any emotion. Luhrmann is getting a little stale.

And unexpected and quite pleasant surprise. While the legendary prequel, Turkish Star Wars, was entertainment for most hardened masochists, visually repulsive, ripping off the possible and the impossible, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones, including shamelessly cutting footage from the Lucas saga and Williams's music, this sequel looks like from another universe, as if Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish state, had been haunting his subjects, in this case Turkish filmmakers, saying "You assholes, you will not bring this kind of shame on me!". The Turks have really learned their lesson and approached things from a completely different angle. Whereas the prequel played on a deadly serious note, this one is a thoroughbred comedy that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. The humour is underhanded at times, but, surprisingly, sometimes really funny, with the Turkish filmmakers often making fun of themselves in a nice, self-deprecating way, just like they make fun of some sci-fi classics. Said humour, of course, is not very sophisticated by the most part, but I didn’t expect that. The script has something that at least resembles a story, and thanks to the not-quite-low-budget production design and frequent change of locations it doesn't resemble a cheap TV production; also, Mehmet Ali Erbil is a pretty funny guy. I expected utter shit and got a harmless piece of bollocks, whose low rating here I attribute to the well-deserved scorn received by its infamous predecessor. It's a pity that most of the reviewers don't appreciate the self-reflection of the creators, which I perceive and welcome – it’s so lacking in some of our filmmakers, starting with Troška and ending with Magnusek. PS: watched with English subtitles (a must!). PPS: the main star of the prequel, Cuneyt Arkin, only appears for a few seconds. Fortunately.

You'll be right at home with the basic premise (which is far from being the only thing the film stands on) if you've seen the Oscar-winning The Artist. Again, this is the era of the transition from silent to talkies and all the tribulations that go with it, but the main mission of this film is something else: an infectious joie de vivre. Nowhere, in any other film, will you see such unique dance numbers! The music is great, and the actors? Debbie Reynolds is sweet, Kelly's sidekick Donald O'Connor is a blessing for any film's driving force in how talented he is, precise in his role, and a match for the film's main star, who is, of course, Gene Kelly, a genius gifted with musicality and movement, and such a tremendous likeable guy that I would have fallen in love with him that morning if I weren't straight. The roughly twenty-minute passage in the second half of the film, in which one stage after another alternates in rapid succession, is a visual treat for any aesthete, and the individual performances have been described as the forerunners of today's music videos in terms of imagination and variety. This film is the essence of a beautiful and positive cinematic experience, and it looks stunning on Blu-ray!

Shallow popcorn flick that lacks the soul, the atmosphere and that one memorable scene that have always made the gangster genre so attractive and rewarding to viewers. There are many moments, especially the last ten minutes, that were written following the manual "How to make an unwanted parody of a genre quickly and easily." The only thing that keeps it afloat is Josh Brolin’s manly charisma. On the whole, it's as routine and stupid as Zombieland, which I expected from Fleischer, so there's no question of disappointment. And please, don’t give me that “Inspired by a True Story” line.

Jiří Trnka was a world-class filmmaker, as evidenced by the many international and festival awards this film has received. There is obvious inspiration from the work of Josef Mánes and Mikoláš Alš, but Trnka remains his own, full of pictorial imagination. By making the narrative very poetic, it may be a bit terse, but that didn't detract from the experience. At the same time, the film is free from excessive pathos, although the time and the theme might have tempted to go that way. As is Trnka's custom, the image is very dynamic – the camera frequently changes angles, circles, swims in any direction, zooms, and Trnka does not avoid mass scenes, which must have been very demanding in terms of realisation. In terms of imagination, Trnka was comparable only to Karel Zeman or Břetislav Poyar, and in this context I wonder when will we see DVD editions of his work in this country? As with Zeman until recently, our distributors have a large debt, or rather lack of interest. But what do I wonder, in a country where 600,000 people saw Babovřesky in a few weeks.

In this day and age, full of social and cultural uncertainties, you need at least one thing you can count on. And here you have it: beefcake Taylor Lautner is going to take his shirt off again in 5 minutes :) Otherwise, of course, you can't make anything other than a silly and stupid movie based on a silly and stupid novel. Not even Chris Nolan behind the camera could have helped here.

I am an omnivore in music, but not an uncritical one. I love the 1960s and 70s the most, my favourites are Pink Floyd and The Beatles, who moved music forward by several decades, but I also like the work of Iron Maiden and the first four albums of Metallica, and from the opposite pole, Depeche Mode and Bjork. Robbie Williams's pop output is a bit beyond me, but I can't deny him one thing, at least for a short time, he popularised to the masses a wonderful period of music when swing ruled the world. And in this concert, he goes all in, flawlessly intoning, gliding across octaves with enormous panache, like perhaps Sinatra himself, until one regrets that he didn't stick with swing instead of mediocre pop (he hasn't released a proper album in perhaps 10 years, it's clear that his songwriting guru Guy Chambers is sorely missed). Compared to these immortal swing tracks, the sexlessness and uninspiredness and – I'm not afraid to say shittiness – of contemporary music "idols" like Justin Bieber or One Direction are now revealed as the emperor’s new clothes. Well, to each their own.....

Sometimes you need a fairy tale like this for your audience's mental health, even if it is painfully predictable, but it has a positive feeling, which is never enough.