POMO

Spree cynically shines a light on the values of contemporary teen society, which builds its world on the number of likes, for which it will do anything. In other words, it’s nothing new under the sun, just ab-absurdum shifted to online murder for fun, but not in a fun or imaginative way, of course, but rather in a tediously drawn-out way, through selfie videos of a boy, even trying to touch on America’s racial problems. Spree is boring, creatively worthless and, mainly, as superficial as the subject it examines.

Sputnik is an American-style science fiction horror film with a pseudo-alien at a military research station in the Kazakh desert (set in 1983), conceived by the Russians as a human drama about a parasite-afflicted cosmonaut and the scientist who wants to help him because she has fallen in love with him. But with American-style visuals, genre clichés and archetypal characters that we already know from elsewhere (the inhumane colonel in command, the enthusiastic scientist with a conscience, etc.). The production is okay and the actors are fine, but the viewing experience is unsurprising and a bit yawn-inducing.

A psycho grandmother, a house with hidden corridors behind the walls and ghostly scenes and mysterious story branches that are supposed to be scary but aren’t, and which have no reason to exist in the plot even after the end of the film. However, I very much liked the sensitive and sad ending with its philosophical point about the inevitability of aging and the generations of the family.

It’s worth waiting through the long exposition with multiple characters, because the black magic kicks the movie into high gear. Though the digital centipedes and insects detract from the film’s sense of seriousness, the demonic forces that can douse one in boiling water or make one shoot a child in the limbs will reliably draw your attention. This is back-country horror done the Indonesian way.

This concentratedly told horror drama offers the exotic setting of a remote Indonesian village and its surroundings, the mysterious atmosphere of the curse afflicting the village’s inhabitants and more than one cruel scene that Hollywood would never dare to make. Tara Basro in the lead role is not only pretty, but also makes a respectable driving force for a feature film. The Indonesians quite surprise me with their ability to make plot-driven, formalistically attractive, character-focused films. Though the climax may be overwrought in some of the characters’ reactions, it is not enough to degrade the overall experience.

Lyne’s Lolita is more complex in its depiction of the feelings of the main character, Humbert, than Kubrick’s version. It conveys his tragic story to the viewer more poetically through the dreamy expression and voice of Jeremy Irons, underscored by Morricone’s melancholic music. After all of the relationship woes, the prologue is very nicely connected with the epilogue... Lyne’s other ace up his sleeve is a more open yet still subtle portrayal of the couple’s intimate relationship. It was also a good decision to focus less on Lolita’s mother and her relationship with Humbert, which in Kubrick’s case was justified only as a substitute for what he couldn’t dare to put in the film at the time. I also value the more furtive evil character of Quilty. Overall, this is a more expressive and satisfying film than the “original”.

Though Kubrick’s Lolita is not exactly riveting, it is still entertaining enough to see where the relationship between the caring gentleman with hidden desires and the virginal adolescent girl discovering her natural womanly seductiveness will lead. This calmly and smoothly told story is psychologically detailed and subtle, with surprising tragicomic moments and a mysteriously ambiguous character played by Peter Sellers. However, what I find criminally lacking in Kubrick’s version of Lolita is a more revealing, or at least implied, spectrum of their coming together intimately, which we can only imagine. The main character, Humbert, comes across rather as a platonically enamoured, impotent wretch who fanatically holds on to his object of desire only because he cannot have it himself.

The Glass Castle is a mediocre drama about a family with four children, a crazy mother and an alcoholic father. In other words, they are a family like millions of others in the civilized world, which causes their story to be uninteresting. The attempt to highlight more realistic life values than fitting into the commercial system of the world is both hackneyed and ineffective, as the one who is supposed to carry it off is a somewhat clever but otherwise irresponsible, down-on-his-luck alcoholic. In short, it’s just another bit of “based on actual events” whining about how hard someone had it in their childhood.

Dumb from head to toe, and yet at the end it pretends to have a "big idea".

A bigger budget and a more effectively rendered battle would have elevated The King, but even without those things, this is an outstanding film. The slow-paced, psychologically meticulous narrative follows the transformation of a bohemian pacifist’s way of thinking and attitude into that of a cruel warrior who wants to uphold his honor. Friendship, ambition, intrigue and the loss of something held dear in exchange for something less valuable but predestined by fate. At the same time, the English and French “political nature” is nicely depicted in historical terms. All four of the key roles are played by great actors. As co-writer and co-producer, Edgerton is the father of this work. Excellent.