POMO

After a crucial scene, the initial disgust over the cheap attempt at shocking the viewer by depicting the sex life of Los Angeles teenagers turns into respect over the believably depicted reaction of these brats to the crime they committed. Its concept is not as clear and precise as that of Kids, but also not as fumbling and empty as that of Ken Park. Bully is somewhere in between. A weaker three stars than those I gave Alpha Dog.

A soap opera made into a feature film. An erotic one.

In its ending, the film tries to make up for everything it had botched earlier. And the final twist is supposed to make a major point. Ahem. Traitor is too dramaturgically inconsistent for me.

Guillermo del Toro can turn even a B-movie premise with mediocre digital effects into a decent, original horror flick. Especially thanks to the unique script, the great use of interiors from the Manhattan underground and, last but not least, the unconventional characters that are typical of del Toro works (the shoeshine guy and his son). Mimic is an action-free, more deviant version of Cameron’s Aliens, which is exactly to my liking.

This cheap, TV-like thriller has a single good (surprising) scene and one well-played character (young Remo). Overall, however, the only thing that makes this less of a failure than Argento’s previous Sleepless is the lack of glaring lapses in logic. The rest is just stagnant water in a vase with half-dead flowers. Don’t waste your time on this and instead watch Untraceable, which is based on a similar premise, but is better in the technical aspect with a more dramatic ending.

Valkyrie will be enjoyed the most by those who like to dig into this particular historical period. Bryan Singer approaches his subject matter responsibly, without twisting history to better suit his movie. Valkyrie doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t; it has no ambition to be a piece of “high art” and it doesn’t comment on politics like Spielberg’s Munich. It just reconstructs events as a solid conspiratorial thriller with high production values, exciting and well-cast (despite being a small part, Kenneth Branagh’s General von Tresckow is the film’s most interesting and best played character). And its ending doesn’t lack emotion or depth, which reminds us that someone was courageous enough to at least try... P.S. John Ottman’s choral main theme is beautiful!

Clint Eastwood with fragile piano music is the Danielle Steel of serious topics. But for topics as serious as those addressed in Changeling, and especially for tying them together in some meaningful way, a big heart alone is not enough.

This chill-out comedy is basically the same as The Devil Wears Prada except worse, because it lacks the phenomenal Meryl Streep (with all due respect to Jeff Bridges).

Evilenko is a boring, flat, monotonous and above all superfluous film. It fails as a reconstruction of actual events, because it twists reality, changing it to fit its own vision. And it fails as a fictional thriller/shocker about a serial killer because it doesn’t offer the basics: a well-thought-out police investigation and terrifying murders. Evilenko seems to have been made by a naïve, conservative TV filmmaker who thinks that gloomy music and one well-cast actor will turn his work into a masterpiece. That was a grievous mistake.

The New Country is something like Jan Svěrák’s The Ride, but more carnal, hectic, sincere, open and emotional, and with beautifully delivered performances by actors completely devoted to the cause. It’s been a long time since I saw camerawork and editing so strongly and so precisely connected to the feelings of the characters (a lot of close-ups of faces). This film is a very pleasant surprise that does not need to pretend to be “art” and speaks to the viewer in a universal language.