DaViD´82

Latin American Czech show Bachelors but this time cynical. None of the short stories lack a basic idea (if nothing else), but without exception, everyone here more or less lacks more elaboration of the introductory "cynical teaser", it does not hit the right note, it lacks gradation and punchline. Szifron has good ideas, but someone else should have written it for him in the form of a script. This is a waste of good potential, which still works mainly thanks to the duo of segments "Auto squabble" and "gritty bash".

It suffers from so many problems that it will surprise you. A lot of short padding scenes fill many of the episodes, dialogs from time to time become annoying boring word-for-word dialogs and theatrical gestures, many unnatural and forced metaphors are way over the edge of quality TV, obvious cheap ignoble scene are like from a completely different series (and surprisingly they handle the central sado-masochist relationship exceptionally well), Lewis will annoy you with his ridiculous effort to have "like a New York" accent and a there were certainly much more things I could mention. But all of this becomes irrelevant the moment it settles and focuses on the main point that is, a cheating game in the psychological, legal, financial and personal level of a pair of alpha dogs (basenji vs. pit bull terrier) from opposite sides of the Wall Street barricade, where the boundaries between who is the cat and who is the mouse, who yin and who yang are completely erased. And fortunately, such moments still prevail, moreover, it restores its reputation with excellent final episodes. As expected, Lewis is rather a sparring partner of Giamatti, but he makes it up it with his specific, hard-to-define charisma, on which his character of a "kind billionaire who is loved by everyone but there is something odd about him" that determines if he fails or not. Paradoxically, the biggest snag of the whole series are the partners of the central duo. Åkerman is clearly only a makeweight, and screenwriters artificially put her at the center of events at all costs to create the impression that she has a more fundamental role. Maggie is much better in this respect. Her role is the unacknowledged main heroine of the entire series, a multi-layered and stimulating character forming a connecting bridge and bringing tension between the central duo. But she manages her role hardly well, and at the same time the whole series would only benefit from her better performance. So, as much as it did not reach its "paper potential" in many ways, when it is already starts to reach it, you will get into it and you will be excited to watch the new season. However, the second and third seasons made big progress and learnt on their mistakes, that is for sure. Caricatures of the characters, the uselessness of the wives, episodes serving as a padding or extremely forced and unnatural ways how to make two characters meet in one room literally disappeared overnight. Everyone follows their line and pretty much step by step progresses inevitably and approaches to an open conflict with each other. It aims straight at the core of individuals who want (and most importantly need) to win at any cost. Even at the cost of (self) destroying everything and everyone around you. The fourth series fixed the biggest flaw of the last series and relied much more on the scenes where the central duo is together. Unfortunately, their story lines each go their own way, so it doesn't even seem to be story lines from the same series. In addition, Chuck's is too similar to the one in the previous series, and Bobby always makes something up on the spot, has many padding scenes and laughs at supporting characters. The beginning of the season is appalling, but the final third saves a lot, although it will only take a detour back to the point where the series was at the beginning of the third series.| S1: 3/5 | S2: 4/5 | S3: 4/5 | S4: 3/5 |

It is still true that le Carré originals have been extremely lucky to have successful adaptations for several decades. And the Night Manager is no exception, although thanks to changes in it, there are not many elements left that make le Carré le Carré. Which, of course, is no big deal, because the local attractive changes within the chosen stylization of this adaptation work and are not intended to please the majority viewer. In contrast to the original, there is a cold depersonalization. The main protagonist is a inconspicuous and average person which has hidden strength. It is focused on the procedural side of things and the edges of the ambivalence of the parties involved are made softer. In this respect it is made more like in a showy Bond movie style, however it is intimate conversational. However, as already mentioned, it is not a bad thing, because it works here. That is for sure. What worked out perfectly was that the plot fits perfectly into the plot to the current situation. The cast could hardly have been better and the tension and pace were definitely not lacking. Simply an excellent genre movie, against which it is hardly possible to have more fundamental objections. Perhaps only the fact we can be unhappy about is that the original is "only" an excellent genre work and nothing more.

Vaughn's style is so noticeable that one is surprised that only produced the movie. The main achievement of the authors is that they were able to withstand the comedic level without making jokes at the expense of Eddie and at the same time did not start regretting him. On the contrary, they sincerely supported him and you will support him too. And what about the fact that it is only a feel-good one time movie, even if it is so successful and functional in all respects. And it is also a stylish feel-good one time movie, which in addition to the playful soundtrack referring to Cool Runnings bring a lot of emotions.

The most civil of comic books and not only the superheroes ones. To the extent that the superhuman dimension is somehow extra (the movie would do easily without Jessica and Luke's), because themes that are addressed include complex non-black and white characters and advanced themes are dealt with such as rape, psychological violence and abuse, "ownership" of someone else, obsession, post-traumatic stress disorder, guilty from the point of view of a higher moral principle versus the strictly legal point of view, etc. Definitely no sunshine nor rainbows. On the contrary, it would be really hard to find anything more depressive in the noir/comic book genre department. Not even hard but maybe impossible. You may have some objections about the movie though, that is for sure. First of all, it slightly tends be kind of more traditional concept of comic books about broken/damage debris in the final episodes. Some side story lines just fade away and some episodes have really slow pace (event when considering that this series is very slowly flowing and quite one). However, even in the weakest moments, it keeps the characters above the waters of mediocrity. Above all, the main bad guy could, by the very nature of his ability, easily become overcomplicated, but the opposite is true, the more impressive whisperer has not been here since the days of Gaiman's Lucifer. Jessica Jones is on a completely different level in terms of genre and style (this is a intimate personal psycho drama) than her colleague the Daredevil, but together they begin to form a universe, which, unlike interchangeable blockbuster merchandising cash cows of the movie industry (whether from Marvel or DC) is interesting, stimulating and has endless potential for the future.| S1: 4/5 |

Many things bothered me. Every other "art like" scene lasted dozens of seconds longer, without being justified by saying anything new. Postsynchronisation, which is high above the domestic "standard", but especially in emotionally tense scenes, it will strike you, as the voiceover artist is not on the same page as the main hero. That the victims aren't even mentioned by name or that the move creators decided to play it safe following to successful examples (yes, in many ways it follows in Ida's footsteps)… Well, there would be a lot to comment on. Nevertheless, the authors got under my skin. It has an excellent subliminal tension of a la Capote/ Brooks classic, an almost unseen fact in our film industry, where the authors do not need to say everything in words as in a radio play, several infinitely strong scenes (led by a discussion with a lawyer), overall ambivalence leaving many purely on to the viewer and especially to the excellent Olszańska that excels even in some weaker scenes.

Basically, everything that was true about the first movie applies perfectly this time as well, but it is more chaotic and noticeably less tight thanks to the number of characters and story lines that are only started but not developed properly. The main distinguishing features are contradiction that goes hand-to-hand with divisiveness, where every fifteen minutes of footage include five minutes of enthusiasm (some performances, storylines, specific scenes), for five minutes you look at your watch (the amount of ballast around the lengthy building of the fictional world, which is not properly used, there are unnatural story lines packed with troubles of Lois or a too complicated dull phase of Luthor's plan) and five minutes of desperate beating of the head on a seat (bloated pomp, dream sequences of Clark and Bruce, Eisenberg's childish play, confusing action culminating in a half-hour digital mess like "skyscrapers" are falling again dull finale scene, absent tension between the central duo and especially "Marta"). And the whole movie consists of ten consecutive 15 mins sequences. This is best illustrated by Affleck/Batman. The role of the weary aging Bruce fits him perfectly, but the script makes him a stale naive puppet in the game of smarter people. Like Batman, he is also excellent, but he is useless, because during the final settlement he just dodges the falling building while the super (men / women / mutants) are fighting. So, you have everything in one basket: good intentions and ideas, the realization of which is often not very smooth and sometimes becomes almost an unwanted self-parody. The Ultimate edition montage is then smoother, despite the length. You feel that everything is running more smoothly but nothing more. Yes, it's good for the first two hours, Clark and Bruce's motivations are more elaborate, Lois suddenly has something to do. It all represents Snyder's gloomy vision better. But what's the point of all this if the functional stress is ruined in the last third of the movie (which is still an hour of footage) during "we fight a monster in a CGI way" which is both silly and boring. And it does not fit into the atmosphere set by the first two thirds. Not at all. Which, this montage surprisingly makes even stronger.

A paradoxical situation where the creators learned from a few mistakes of the previous series in order to make several new ones when solving them. The first season suffered somewhat the excessive footage of the thirteen episodes. The second, on the other hand, sometimes looks like the thirteen series are not enough and sometimes the episodes are too brief. The first season, despite its unnecessary length of several episodes, seemed tight and was based on the Matt/Fisk duality. The second season is much more dynamic, but there are separate story lines associated with Punisher/Elektra (he is supercool, but she is an incomparably more interesting character), where each character plays on his/her backyard, so it works much less tightly, especially in the second third, when almost six independent story lines are developing at the same time, and even though this time it strives for a certain duality (different strategies how to solve Matt/Frank's problems), this time it is not very stimulating. Last time it was about the great Fisk, but what was missing a bit were "street antagonists". Now it's almost exclusively about these characters, but there is no charismatic leader who does not get his hand dirty but rather controls everything from the shadows. The only thing that can be considered a flaw for both series is that if they have the main character at their disposal as a lawyer, then why the hell don't take advantage of it? Although they try somehow, but it does not do the job. Few other superheroes can offer such grateful story lines in their normal life. Otherwise, all good things have remained or increased in more than a small amount (elaborate characters where Matt is not "I'm a hypocritical Catholic who doesn't know what he wants", Murdock is not the most interesting character by far, black and white moral dilemmas, refined and full-contact "Raid like" fights if at all possible, are much more darker and more uncompromising than last time, and they did not hold back last time). For the third season, it would require a definitive return of Fisk (because when he is on the screen, the quality rises sharply; after all, it is no coincidence that this time the top scenes of the series are those where he is engaged), he would need a street bad guy to help (Bullseye?) and they should face an alliance of ambivalent heroes marked by a fragile internal tension. This would solve the problems of both series in one blow. In any case, I am more than happy with it.

A normal Argentine family. At first glance, this may just seem like another "wannabe Scorsese movie" from someone who has seen it in Mafia or Casino and would also really like to be so stylish and formally playful in terms of access to the genre. However, it will soon become clear that this is not a forced replacement or a copycat, but a regular (however straightforward) Scorsese movie in the best sense of the word.

Purely in terms of genre it is flawless. It is well-paced, a believable course of events, it can be exciting, behind the scenes political betrayals during the tense presidential campaign even downright excellent (and thanks to the fact that one of the candidates uses fear of terrorism as his weapon and the other one "sunshine" approach, so it is actually up-to-date). Compared to the movies it lags behind in terms of characters that sadly follow the standard and predictable pattern. The introductory embarrassing episode, which pretends to be a completely different kind of the series than what it turns out to be in the second episode, does not help it at all. | S1: 4/5 |