DaViD´82

Shawn Ryan as usually came up with a topic that is sturdier than almost anything else. But instead of becoming a pet project of one of the many cable TV channels that are not afraid to stir up stagnant water, play-it-safe commercial ABC took charge. And so, all explosive and sturdy stuff gets side-tracked. When you add the amount of non-actors in the cast and the recycled scenery from Lost then it’s not at all surprising that this is a B-movie par excellence. And despite of the all I said above, a surprisingly good B-movie.

A melancholic film noir in the snow. I don’t consider it to be a B movie. More like an excellent, straightforward non-genre representative of its style with an unusual hero. And the camera... Tourneur simply understands black and white film more than anybody else. The only reproach I have has to be addressed at Anne Bancroft’s awful hairstyle; she shouldn’t have gone out in public with an atrocity like that on her head.

It’s startling how very naïve it is. His decades-older genre brothers are no match for this. But even more startling is that, (not only) thanks to Bava’s visual sensitivity which makes your heart sing and flutter in your rib cage, it doesn’t matter one bit. So in the end the most startling thing is the fact that back then Andrea Checchi looked exactly the same as what Martin Shaw looks like today.

This could have been an excellent one-part documentary. But this is a two-parter and so the viewer assumes the role of editor, pecking out the wheat from the chaff in terms of interest value. It often seems more like a documentary about special cameras than a documentary about the hitherto unseen life of polar bears. And I bet that the word camera is uttered far more frequently than the word bear. On the other hand, when it’s interesting, it’s really interesting.

If you're expecting a classic gangster movie, keep waiting. If, however, you can put up with a blunt and straightforward popcorn movie with all the trimmings, where instead of CGI robots with lasers, there are tough guys in trench coats with machine guns, you don't have to wait any longer.

A melancholic (non)genre movie with the most unsatisfying zombie ever in the unmistakable style of Darby Jones who proves the rule that “strength lies in simplicity". The unique atmosphere of all-embracing insecurity on an exotic, sweltering island, the occult background and playing with the viewers’ curiosity “and what if, after all..." (all the more with a glass of Caribbean rum in hand) is simply priceless. Especially when it comes to the screenwriter’s guarantee in the shape of Siodmak behind the typewriter and fine artist of black and white canvas, Tourneur, behind the camera.

About Jan Palach’s deed. To achieve appropriate detachment from Palach’s deed in literary terms, we needed the view from outside of the Polish writer, Mariusz Szczygieł. And to achieve detachment in terms of cinema, we need the view from outside of the Polish director, Agnieszka Holland. And when we need... That’s partially true, but apart from the director it is a Czech film and finally thanks to Hulík we can say that we are now able to come to terms with historical skeletons in our closet (and we have lots of those!) like many, mainly the Germans, have been doing over the past years. No, it’s not quite filmed in a completely detached style, but her and there a little dose of pathos and pigeonholing characters works just fine; especially since they have time for this only in episode one where it is understandable. Unarguably the most important documentaries to have emerged in recent years and maybe not the very best (even though after the third “Normalization" episode I thought it probably was), but even so, full of powerful “unobtrusive" scenes and details which we certainly don’t see every day. P.S.: I’m glad that at last someone found the courage to give the powerhouse of the Theater in Dlouhá and one of the most talented actresses of her generation, Jaroslava Pokorná more than one line in a movie; and about time too.

A low-key spaghetti western that takes place almost exclusively on a dusty back yard (the ingenious camera work sells it well from ever new angles) where the atmosphere gradually thickens. And it becomes so thick that you could cut it with a knife. A good genre piece with nothing extra. And nothing is needed; maybe just somebody else instead of Richard Wyler, because he is unconvincing as a pragmatic gunslinger.

A Spanish spaghetti (or paella, or chorizo or jamón, if you like) western about how revenge isn’t always necessarily sweet. I would like to see the 105 minute version, but unfortunately the only version available has been cut by fifteen minutes. And it’s been cut pretty unsparingly and without any system. Not only do scenes not follow on from each other, they are often cut dead right in the middle. The greatest asset of the result is that it not only captures the attention, but it pulls you right in, despite the above said. Primarily it is the story, which isn’t a cheap pocket novel about revenge, but a real tragedy which first makes you feel the despair of a man who deserted from the army to save his true love and his son, only to lose everything and then in the second half the despair of a man who lost more than his family due to the first man. They hate each other, you will understand what steps both take and that is why the finale is so tragic; there are no winners, just losers.

H. G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper through time and space. Seems like a great theme, and the cast... But however good it looks on paper, in practice it is terribly dull. It falls into trivial romantic cooing that isn’t worth wasting a good theme on, because that could happen without any time travel, Wells or the Ripper; but here all of that is somehow sidelined.