Goldbeater

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is a very pale sequel created just for the sake of it. At any point, you can guess what will happen five minutes later in the story and it then happens for real. The fun part begins when the charismatic Ken Foree and his situation-agnostic coolness appear; he brings some fresh air in an otherwise totally simplistic storyline (similarly to the over-the-top Dennis Hopper in TCM II). The film ends on an illogical note, with some characters who had their times earlier in the story coming back on the screen as if nothing had happened. To my surprise, I enjoyed it even less than that oddly insane Hooper’s TCM II. Granted, that genuine and intense first Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of its kind!

This movie, similarly to its main anti-hero, was somewhat ahead of its time. The scientific taboos that Boris Karloff’s character struggles to destroy in the name of human enlightenment (using unfortunate ways) are in some obvious aspects similar to several current actions of today’s modern medicine (of course, only partially). Interestingly, Dr Savaard’s appealing opinions and convincing arguments would make it difficult to label the character as a bad guy. For the thirties, the film introduces an unusually complex tragic personality which is all but black-and-white. For one, the man’s psychological evolution is plausible and his vindictive motives in the second part of the story are fully understandable and, what’s more, you find yourself wishing that all ends well for him. And the last act has some serious kick.

I really like John Landis’ movies, but in Schlock, he was visibly just becoming acquainted with the film media, this low-quality and boring parody of ape B-movies not being quite satisfying. It’s obvious that sitting behind the camera – and in this case also in front of it – was a film geek who merrily projected his crazy ideas on the screen; as a whole, his picture has a totally random development, few well-built gags and plenty of blank moments. If I had to point something out, it would be Schlock’s mask, made by Rick Baker, combined with the comedic acting of Landis himself in the title role, because – even with his make-up – the viewer can easily read his facial expressions, which account for a substantial part of the film as well as for many jokes.

Amir Shervan must have had a weird star constellation above him at the time he shot Samurai Cop, because the movie he produced was unintentionally bad to a phenomenal degree. And sure enough, it’s a delight from A to Z for anyone with a sense of humour – no wonder there’s such a vast fan base today. To build upon such an anomaly was virtually impossible. Gregory Hanataka still gave it a try and came up with this deplorable 90-minute-long extended music video, which draws quite a significant part of the original cast back from oblivion, but as a whole, is barely watchable. What’s the point in being bad on purpose? There’s zero added value from that. The ending, in which Tommy Wiseau seems to have received an instruction from the director to bluntly burp out anything he thought would be funny, is one of the most pathetic climaxes and embarrassing scenes I’ve seen recently.

A blast. Amir Shervan made this legendary bad movie, whose naivety and creative helplessness result in endless bursts of laughter. At first, I was wondering if Samurai Cop was made this shoddy on purpose, but no – it seems the creators were totally serious about it. In the category of so-bad-it’s-good movies, this one is the absolute best, and I’m going to highly recommend it around me in the future.

This is a project that should never have seen the light of day. If someone had set fire to the editing room with all the recorded material, everyone would be more than happy. The story of well-known Broadway musical (if you can call it a story at all) has a structure that can't be easily adapted for the big screen, so Tom Hooper filmed a plotless and unfocused exhibition of chaotic dance choreography, terrible acting performances and excessively overused CGI. Cats is a horrible spectacle that doesn’t understand even the very basics of the movie medium.

If we put A Better Tomorrow 1&2, The Killer, Once a Thief, and Hard-Boiled in one bag called "John Woo's first-class action movies", then Heroes Shed No Tears would be his ultimate Hong Kong B-movie. This is a movie in which the main characters are on the way to bring an evil general to justice and meet all sorts of interest groups who are (A) trying to kill them; (B) trying to play dangerous games with them, or (C) trying to give them a Thai massage - it really is the artless dull naive spectacle you want to see from John Woo (if let off the leash). Constant action, streams of blood, childish drama, incredible pathos, casual sex, and comedic inserts, this movie has bits of everything. You'll be shaking your head at this movie every passing minute.

This movie is based on a very promising and tempting topic. Let's say it could have been Alien at sea, (one scene even quite obviously references Alien), but for me, nothing really works in this movie. Year after year, I think to myself that screenwriters have perhaps already seen enough to know how to write characters who act like humans and not like idiotic machines that can't react logically to each other. This movie, however, confirms the opposite. The cast of characters seems to be straight out of a horror parody. Although Neasa Hardiman obviously has certain imaginative visions, she relatively fails to build any real tension and sense of horror - everything happens with slow sad piano (can this create a horror atmosphere?), the thrill is missing and you certainly don't care about the main characters at all. After all, this is just another installment in the series of movies that rest on a large graveyard of promising unfulfilled themes.

This is a movie about political influences, lies, manipulation, and concealment. The movie is also about the futility of trying to fight against it all. Z is a very unpleasant spectacle from the master of political thrillers, Costa-Gavras. I was surprised at how much time the main actor Yves Montand spent on the screen, which in the end adds to the shock and disillusionment that belongs to the tone of this movie. And before the final credits came a total sobering up.

It is nice to see that you can shoot a movie in a certain genre in the Czech Republic for just a little money, of which it could be said to have certain qualities, although only as satire. In principle, however, this does not bring anything new to the table. It immediately brought to mind two American B-movies from 1959 and 1960, which have the same premise. In their undeveloped cinematography in this genre, Czechs are only coming up with things that blew up abroad six decades ago. It could have been much better - there's very little humour, I would have cut out some parts of the movie and omitted the audio of the "sexy whispering Tiffany", which was really very cheap and tacky.