DaViD´82

Good to the core, former Liverpool bobby, on the road to ruin... The saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions in practice. Psychological, realistic, uncompromising. And (unfortunately/thank god) wide open, without a hope for another series. Sam Miller proves again and anew that as for his works for the BBC, what he touches is gold. Look out Midas.

Riding the same wave (although this is more like a several-story high tsunami) as Carnage and countless others. Of course, this is “just" another in an endless row of interior, purely conversational (tragi)comedies that don’t treat the audience as idiots and are based on plays. No, they don’t come up with anything new. And yes, it doesn’t matter at all because this time it is simply the best conversation piece far and wide. Nothing more and nothing less.

The essence of Scandi crime series with all the essential trimmings. The pluses include the dark and dismal atmosphere, its focus on the characters, exceptional uncompromising nature and social crossover in the form of a (seemingly) socially aware culprit. The minuses include the character of the unerring murderer and the primary the bane of most Scandi crime series, it’s needlessly over-complicated. And over-complicated in spite of a certain transparency of plot; in this case often several episodes in advance. It doesn’t take away anything from the whole show, but it’s annoying. What in the end makes this more than a mere, darn good genre piece is the central duo, who deserve to be serenaded with odes and it’s hard to decide whether it’s better written or acted, and they alone could make much worse series than The Bridge work excellently. The same applies, word for word, for season two as for season one; both the pluses and the minuses. It’s just that here they follow the rules of a continuation “about more and on a bigger scale". It runs the same course, has the same style, theme and structure, just in the guise of a new case. Especially the backstories are almost one to one in terms of type. Whether or not this is a(n) (dis)advantage depends on what you expect from it. Even so, in the end it is sufficiently unique not to come across like some cowardly sticking to tried and tested formulae. Again and mainly thanks to the characters; and this time it isn’t just the central duo, although they are still peerless (not only) in this genre. | S1: 5/5 | S2: 4/5 |

A cinematically bold space-time meta kitsch epic which unnecessarily shows off by misusing a minimum of actors in a maximum number of roles; which, thanks to their latex faces when characters are cast regardless of the sex or color of the actor is more reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau than anything else (the influence of Lana Wachowski?). Not even the imbalance between the separate segments (Tykwer > Wachowskis) is something to jump for joy for. And it mainly lacks catharsis. The creators say want to say along the way and so there’s nothing left at the finale. Even despite these errors in the matrix, NASA could send a dvd with this picture to the stars without any qualms, and this might help potentially intelligent life forms to get a good idea “about us". And they might choose to give us a very wide berth.

The French version of Steve Martin lives out his culinary ambitions and, although you will like this warm comedy, in the end it leaves no special aftertaste that would make you watch it regularly. And since the three stars are Lagarde’s dream, I don’t have the heart not to give them to him... And also because Ratatouille did the same better and more gracefully.

What works are the running jokes, parodies on crime genre clichés and dialogs. What doesn’t work is the frequency of the gags. Every scene is literally full of attempts at humor at all costs, in every sentence and in every shot. And this means that much of the “humor" falls flat or is just embarrassing. This said, if you watch five minutes of this you get more stomach-hurting gags than you can count. Mainly and primarily, this is a reincarnation of the classic, non-fecal parody (maybe the first good one since Garth Marenghi's Darkplace eight years ago) and thanks very much to the Brits for that. Season two seems to be about something slightly different (this time the creators target all the tough crime series about undercover cops, especially taking the mickey out of Jack Bauer), but it retains the same good and bad points as season one. One unarguable advantage is that some gags are developed upon and that the creators never repeat old jokes and ideas. P.S.: If you don’t feel completely at home with British English, you probably should avoid this; you would miss the vast majority of puns (almost every other line is at very least a double-entendre) and jabs and that would be a shame because they are the best part.

Time stopped for her when she was still a whiny princess and he is an eternally unsatisfied, ill-mannered bore who doesn’t even say good morning. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. So it’s impossible to root for their relationship because both are the archetype of unpleasantness and that is a thing that not even excellent actors can change. And some relationship problems and mutual alienation after thirty-one years of marriage are reduced to the sexual sphere; which in an non-comedy movie “about real life" is risky, especially since Streep and Jones are playing a couple with a middle-aged crisis, but this time they look like they are in the autumn of their lives, so it seems a little bizarre. And add to this the director’s habit that if you don’t know what direction to go from here (which is very frequent), then put in a song that doesn’t fit the mood at all... Bah, humbug...

A series-length remake of Secrets of State about Nikita in the services of a team of mercenaries where nobody trust anybody (that’s team spirit for you!) with a slight, well, very cool Bourne-esque approach to action and relationships. And this is its biggest plus... Silence. When the characters have nothing to say, they say nothing. And they say nothing for minutes on end. This brevity rears its head in all aspects. When there’s some action, it’s quick, uncompromising and, of course, there’s no talking during. When it’s time for feelings/relationships, they don’t dwell over them and most of the time there’s no talking. What went well is the casting, thanks to which even potential characters “to make up the numbers" are intriguing. And especially Melissa is a dear. Not just that she can act, she doesn’t even look stupid in fights against six foot six tall gorillas. The story isn’t bad; just the main storyline around Hourglass (Spotnitz’s influence is undeniable here) becomes rather overshadowed by the one around Jack Turner or the one with Byzantium as such.

Ralf is not for video games what Shrek was for fairytales or Galaxy Quest was for sci-fi series. Apart from an outstanding introduction and stylish closing credits, he doesn’t have that much in common with the 8 and 16 bit gaming culture. Which takes nothing away in terms of quality; even like this it’s a great, funny family animated movie which loses points only for its rather slow-moving middle part. Apart from Žilková’s midget-like kid’s voice, the dubbing was fine; someone did a really good job with the translation. P.S.: The pre-movie is better than the movie itself.

At the best and (to begin with) less frequent moments, like Nolan’s Batman. At the worst and (to begin with) more frequent moments, like Days of Our Lives. Yes, it’s very lumpy and for every plus there are at least two minuses. The rather dark mood, where nothing is black and white, is just right. In fact, where there’s no talking, just action, it can’t be faulted. But as soon as anybody is meant to act and, god forbid, open their mouth, then... What can I say, just awful and it’s a result of the casting where the main criterium was teen heart throb looks more than anything else. But I liked the absence of any super-powers in combination with an uncompromising approach where Arrow appears here as a positive hero, but in shape of a killer and blackmailer who, in support of “his truth", without hesitation destroys property and kills on a scale that would only occur to real villains in their wildest dreams about ruling the world. In any case, it has considerable potential (see episode five for proof), he just doesn't know how to sell it and most of the time doesn’t try. While all it needs is not to play so hard on the soap-opera relationship string and immediately it would have much more than “hard to watch guilty pleasure". EDIT SOME TIME LATER: It was a mistake to write off the series on the basis of half of the first season, because (unfortunately not until) at the end of the first and then during the second season, Arrow completely made up for the initial disappointment. OK, it still has the problems that most of the production from CW suffers from (especially occasional unnecessary trip-ups by turning toward telenovela maladies), but the pluses gradually overcome the minuses which (if they didn’t disappear completely), in comparison to the beginning, moved from the column “unbearable" to the column “annoying in places, but patience pays off". Especially because, apart from exceptions like Laurel, the creators found a way to work with the main characters. And, like the “villain episodes" sometimes didn’t work, the main episodes that umbrella a particular season work wonderfully; their motivations are understandable, not black and white and always have a perfect balance between charisma and respect. S1 3/5: It takes a long time to find its feet in terms of style and quality. It seems like they are shots into the darkness, never hitting the target. But when at last it finds its feet (in the final episodes), it’s well worth it. And it’s incredible that even the very poor screenwriting at the beginning gradually improves so much that it’s often surprising just how clever and bold it can be (not only) for this genre (before the occasional lapse of logic occurs, forcing you to hold your head in your hands in disbelief). In any case, the season as a whole is a promise of “how good it could be someday" than something that could stand alone. S2 4/5: The creators probably read the viewers’ criticisms and took them to heart, because otherwise it’s hard to believe this great leap forward in terms of quality with regard to everything in the last season that was so criticized. All the annoying bits are relegated to the sidelines or completely removed and especially the episodes developing on the main storyline are pure genre pleasure. Too bad the compulsory season quota is in excess of twenty episodes and so there are several filler-style “villain of the week" episodes which are so interchangeable and routine that it’s a disgrace and all the flashbacks are still from nowhere, going nowhere. But as soon as Arrow and Deathstroke’s fateful vendetta storyline takes over, you find yourself nodding your head in appreciation when you see that Arrow has matured to a stage when he is no longer simply attempting to emulate his role model from a position of a B-movie level, would-be stand-in as he was in the beginning, but that he is now on an equal footing with his role model in many respects. And that’s is quite an achievement for this underfinanced series from a channel specializing in products aimed at American teenagers, isn’t it? | S1: 3/5 | S2: 4/5 |