Lima

Mad Max is an Australian cultural treasure that should have only stayed at three or four episodes. For the first hour, it felt like a sequence of mini-stories, with the disgustingly overacting Chris Hemsworth twitching like a pigeon eating grain and his performance actually making it into a kind of interlocking semi-comedy sketches that I really don't want to see in the Mad Max saga. He was the weakest link in the film. The other one was the overuse of obvious green-screen and over-stylized colors. Back then, years ago, with the first two episodes, I admired the punk spirit that came out of them. A punkness that was related to the low budget, when everything was handmade, so to speak, when the wastelanders were played by real bikers, the cops by real cops, the props were invented in the breaks during filming, and it exuded a wildness and realness that George Miller partially revived in the equally wild Fury Road. This is rather closer Thunderdome, which was also over-stylized and implausible in its depiction of the post-apocalyptic world. I didn't believe it. Mad Max doesn't benefit from a swollen budget because then Miller can't keep it up and in trying to cram in as much as possible, it's like that dog and cat fairy tale where they cooked a cake with so many ingredients that it made them puke (the quarry scene is too over the top). As time goes on, you find that you don't really care much about Furiosa's fate because, unlike Mel Gibson, she's not a pivotal defining character for you, you don't experience it with her, and you pray all the while that there's as little Hemsworth as possible. In fact, the only thing worth singling out is the ten-minute attack on the tanker, because you can feel the punk genuineness of it, where the stuntmen have honestly worked their magic along with those who came up with the choreography. And that's not enough for me, George. Too little.

In the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, Hollywood made about 270 low- and high-budget sci-fi films, and this piece is one of the last representatives of the 'Golden Age of vintage sci-fi', when the demand for this type of films gradually began to wane. Very nicely produced, with nice visual effects and a cinemascope format that was not standard in sci-fi films. It's basically the granddaddy of Ridley Scott's The Martian, 50 years older. Here too, a stranded lone astronaut struggles to survive on inhospitable Mars, and in fact the entire first half is a bit of a solo for him, his ape companion and one inhabitable cave. It's all commensurate with the scientific knowledge of the time, of course, so our hero parches around Mars without an oxygen mask, indulges in a refreshing bath, in short, things Matt Damon could only dream of. Towards the end, it turns into total nonsense, with a native "Friday", aliens whipping deadly rays from a flying saucer in orbit, and changing ecosystems that include fresh snow. The whole thing looks pretty nice, but I can't shake the impression that the long running time is rather untenable given the sparse filler.

More than a decade before falling ignominiously into the clutches of normalization's "cleaning up", Zbyněk Brynych was making good films. Really. Here, too, as if his inspiration came from the best bits of Italian neorealism, he tackles a serious social problem of the time. Having a child out of wedlock in the 1950s was a major trauma for young girls of the time, along with the misunderstanding of those around them; today, of course, nobody gives a shit. And not only did the then debutant, not-so-beautiful Renata Olárová capture it superbly as an actress (today they would give out Czech Lions for similar roles) but also the brisk direction helps it tremendously, the authenticity. The cinematography is always in motion, with some great visual ideas, and the lead actress is more than a worthy partner to the "Brad Pitt of our grandmothers" Jiří Vala, who perfectly combines fluttery immediacy with doubt. What's more, it's nice to see that the word "comrade" is only heard in one single scene and the Socialist ethos is completely absent. The biggest star of the 50s, Jana Brejchová, has only a small role of an excited twit and Eduard Cupák is completely ignored. The ending is atypical, but all the more interesting.

The second half of the 1950s was very interesting for Czech cinema. With the advent of Khrushchev and his condemnation of Stalinist practices, our filmmakers gently probed what they could afford to criticize in their films and what else they couldn't, and this light, cautious treading is interesting to observe today. Which is not to say that this now forgotten film by Martin Frič was one of them. There is a little bit of disillusionment with the building enthusiasm, but mainly Frič attempted a new and not yet properly explored catastrophic genre in Czech cinema. The VERY awkward opening did not suggest that. In fact, for almost the entire first half hour we don't leave one room of an old house and the emotional outpourings of its inhabitants. It's static, and remarkably uninteresting even considering Frič's directorial abilities. Then things finally tip over to the right side, with quite nice cinematography and production design finally making the film vibrant with life, and nice visual effects here and there that doesn't put Frič to shame. Fortunately, there's not much "judging" going on here, no build-up pathos, or any other kind, except for the final tense fateful scene where a life is on the line. The whole plot takes place in one single night, and the nice cinematography manages to sell the contrast of artificial light and shadows. Pity about the boring opening third, unworthy of Frič's skill.

Dear Hollywood, we are sick of this! All the more reason to save on your Disney+ subscription. What started with the stupid The Rise of Skywalker, continued with at least the embarrassing Obi-Wan Kenobi series, culminates in this monstrosity, with cringe odium at an all-time high. I'm not saying Kathleen Kennedy is the gravedigger of the Star Wars brand, she's done her bit, but Leslye Headland (who by her own words doesn't actually like the original Star Wars movies) as showrunner is a huge, huge misstep, one that even the Disney studio brass themselves are beginning to realize in panic after the current 14% audience score on RottenTomatoes and the huge wave of loathing from everyone, ordinary fans to industry people. Maybe they're already banging their heads and will invite some really skilled craftspeople in the future (Andor, Rogue One, The Mandalorian) who won't let this franchise die outright. After thus audiovisual S&M scourge, I'll end with episode 4.

What else to expect from Vojtěch Jasný, a man with a big heart, than a pure poetic film. The first thing that catches the eye after a few seconds is the rousing music by Svatopluk Havelka, which runs through the whole film. All four short stories are simple in plot, it's the atmosphere and visual experience that's important. In the first story, about a little boy waiting for his mother to arrive with his newborn baby sister, the camera conjures up beautiful images of wide meadows, billowing white sheets on a grassy hill, it's a visual delight. In the second story, the beautiful Jana Brejchová, the greatest young acting star of her generation, shines like a bright star, and it is her and the beautiful scenes of nature around the raging river that simply don't disappoint. The third story is probably the most ambitious in terms of plot, it’s about unfulfilled love at first sight, but under the surface Jasný lightly sketches the contradiction between the agricultural cooperative and the simple peasant woman who feels intensely they are bullying her. In the fourth story, an old mother and the sad eyes of a dog play a major role. So sad it almost smacks of kitsch, but beautiful. Essential, clear. And as the film begins with the birth of a human being, so it ends, the circle of life has come full circle.

It’s too colourful, too CGI-laden, and Jennifer Lopez runs around with her big ass at the beginning and admits in one of the dialogues that she has wrinkles and covers her grey hair because nobody gets younger, and for that she gets my nod because her Botox colleagues in the industry probably see it differently. You can easily watch it while doing the ironing; I played GWENT while watching it, so the film is kind of half an ear and one eye. Towards the end Jennifer makes it into a kind of existential drama, where big tears are shed on camera and all that's missing is a big kiss on the broken windshield .... but whatever, I still like you Jennifer, you've been making a lot of shit for the last quarter century, but you're a hardworking girl and I can appreciate that.

Already ridiculed in its day, this film is based on a derided novel by Maurice Sandoz, interesting perhaps only because it was illustrated in 1945 by Salvador Dali himself. It's hard to write about this film and not to spoil the plot twist at the end that is the only memorable thing about the whole film. Until then, or rather until the 'intermission' two-thirds of the way through (yes, even such a short film had its 'Intermission'), we are in a drab castle setting with five actors and only two bats on strings and one gimmicky view of a maze out the window to break us out of our lethargy. There's woefully little to work with here at all, we only see one entrance corridor for almost the entire film, but it's understandable, there wasn't much money involved (it was only 2 months from pre-production to final release). Well, at the end, a monster appears... well, let's say a monster, but one you won't forget till the end. Even in its time, which was rich in naive films, it provoked volleys of laughter from the audience. It may have been meant to be scary, I don't know what the filmmakers intended, but you want to feel sorry for it, hug it and pet it. That's all I'm going to say :o) The film was shot in simplified 3D, which was just beginning at the time, so in some scenes the objects and actors "throw themselves in your face" (the opening dancer, the bats, the monster jumping out the window). Summary? I'll give an overrated 3 stars, I actually miss oldschool naive B-movies like this nowadays. They don't scare or disgust you, they caress your viewer's soul

The main thing you will take away from this film is that Vittorio Storaro (Coppola's Apocalypse Now) was a grandmaster of the camera, a GRANDMASTER! Without knowing in advance who was holding that wonderful optics machine, I immediately noticed the amazing visual compositions, of which there are many, along with the congenial atmospheric music, and in fact the whole film stands on those two components alone. That's because the plot, while maintaining an interesting mystery for two-thirds of it, isn't the strongest element, which you realize especially at the end when the final sci-fi-tinged twist is revealed and it makes you want to bang your head against the wall. This can't spoil the mood, because until then you're floating along beautifully on the seductive mystery and enjoying the gorgeous imagery. And you also notice that Florinda Bolkan has a beautiful smile, it's just a pity about the androgynous hairstyle, she looked much better with a mane with Fulci

I'm going to say it, and I'm surprised myself. Even though I'm an old boomer who grew up on the first Planet of the Apes from the late 60s, and even though I'm not a fan of the CGI serendipity of today, the direction that Rupert Wyatt took 13 years ago, Matt Reeves continued, and now Wes Ball has followed up on, is very much to my liking. While the old Apes from the 70s was becoming a ridiculous parody of itself (and an ugly one at that) episode by episode (except for the legendary first one), and Tim Burton didn't take to it happily later on either, so the current tetralogy is beautifully paced, looks beautiful, makes logical sense in how the apes evolve and take over, and the current installment is such a natural evolution in the plot that the cards are already clearly dealt. It makes me happy that in this day and age we have a film franchise that has great references and works well, which is not the norm in contemporary Hollywood, where "rhyming" is done at the top of its lungs and it usually turns out badly.