Filmmaniak

It surprised me how long this film managed to resonate with me, even though about two-thirds of the way through I lost track of what was going on. After visiting several fan sites, I finally have to admit that it does make sense, although in my opinion it was not possible to entirely break away from all of the time paradox lapses. I have to give credit to Shane Carruth for being able to write this type of script (you can tell that he was originally a technical engineer and mathematician), and I have to recommend the film as one of the most remarkable and thought-provoking contributions to the time travel genre, which is well-directed and contains good performances for a cheap independent debut. On the other hand, I fully understand why his deliberately uncertain, not very explanatory and exclusively hinting narrative structure isn't ideal for many people.

From the position of a capable actor and motivator, Jaroslav Dušek talks for two hours about the upbringing of children, relationships, personal goals and the state of the world in general. In his quest to provide some life guidance, he mixes universal life truths with Native American wisdoms and his own stories and opinions, and the whole thing is wrapped in an esoteric new age philosophy. Sometimes the film is funny and one can't but agree with many of its observations. However, the coincidence with which these simple ideas are vaguely connected, both to each other and to incoherent religious symbolism, turns the film into something between a lecture by a life coach, a reading from a psychological spelling book for beginners, or a church sermon. In addition, some fans of this performance (and therefore also the books) find themselves on the border of fanaticism and sectarian elitism, which is something I didn't know about. This is perfectly summed up by a comment on YouTube, where the author wonders how anyone can give it a thumbs down. Another user replies: “The thumbs down must have been from people whose consciousness is simply not at the level of those of us who watch it more than once."

This is a feature-length advertisement for Mikulov and Moravian vineyards, supplemented by rough patchwork scenes and isolated weak jokes. The film has style with no substance, with unsympathetic protagonists offering only a pile of pseudo-philosophizing about wine and a handful of stereotypical clichés about the sunny Moravian utopia that is supposed to be a landscape full of rest, easy women and cheerful uncles.

Birds of Prey (and Harley Quinn herself) is like a drunk prostitute strewn with glitter with a thick layer of make-up, at first evoking attraction, but upon closer inspection ending up repulsive and sticky. The film masks its banal flat plot with a complicated narrative style, whilst the mostly insufficiently detailed characters act annoying, and the action scenes are seldom able to break free from their chain. At least the pompously flashy visual stylization matches how the film’s crazy and ostentatiously corrupt anti-heroine is presented. Through the combination of its impressive façade, immediacy and all-enforced playfulness with the aesthetics of dirty streets and crumbling, gross locations, it's about as much fun as going to a disco, drinking one shot after another and then furiously vomiting into your purse (which also happens in the film). Some people like this type of entertainment, no doubt about it.

At first glance Daria seems like a stylish mysterious conspiracy thriller, but in reality it is just a bizarre and chaotic feature film amounting to earning a reward for nonsense, seemingly as if it were written by a random plot and dialogue generator. The film’s plot consists of a completely meaningless series of happy coincidences and is strongly marked by the fact that its creators can film an effective shot here and there, psychedelically cut an occasional flashback and underscore a scene with a sharp song, but the level of their narrative, screenwriting and dramaturgical skills ranges in negative values. As a result, the film is incredibly bad and stupid, sometimes so much that it's actually quite fun to watch (steampunk ranch!, sex with demons!!, Jiří Schmitzer in the role of a mad scientist!!!). The film includes a few goofy ideas and the pretty heroine occasionally gets nude, but unfortunately that’s where the positives end.

At first glance, the film seems like a comedic romantic life drama with a lot of emotion and humour, but that would mean that someone other than its creators would have to have made it, because their idea of things like "emotions", "humour" or "life" come off as something obscure from another universe. This poorly filmed and poorly written inconsistent genre mix begins on a light comedic note about relationship lifestyles (but essentially none of it is funny at all), and then gradually mutates into a raw psychodrama with zero trace of comedy. However, the film does not become realistic at all and instead turns into only a superficial and disintegrated torso built on a dubious psychological basis. The film’s goal was probably to satisfy both fans of burdensome dramas relationship comedies, but the battle was lost beforehand. The result is terrible, the film is empty of content, whilst also managing to randomly alternate mutually incompatible moods and follow a lazy template in which men behave like sociopaths and women are destined to love them, constantly forgive them and let them do whatever they want to them. This is particularly inappropriate in a film about women that happens to be written and directed by women. The fact that the main female roles are played by Czech women and male roles by Yugoslavs very poorly dubbed into Czech is just the icing on the cake. That the film was going to be a disaster could be guessed from the bizarre opening credits, in which a book version of the film first passes around a digital Earth in space, followed by a cartoon radio pulling an astronaut in a red convertible, which is of course entirely unrelated to the rest of the film.

Probably Paul Feig's most enjoyable (it’s not unruly, annoying or aggressive) comedy so far, but even so, it’s barely average. From the very onset to its end, the film, which is a romance inspired by a Christmas song, driven by a hackneyed story-cliché about an unsympathetic, selfish and irresponsible heroine who, thanks to the love and advice of the right man, becomes a better person, reconciles with her family and finally learns to love herself, comes off as a patchwork of motifs and scenes borrowed from other films that were quite a bit better. It’s easy to appreciate the hard-working actors and the atmosphere of luminous London, but overall, the film is brought down by its primitive humour (all of the comedy about the protagonist is along the lines of her falling into garbage or birds shitting in her face, and there are in fact very few true laughs in the film), but also by its incredibly dull and cheesy (and unfortunately very predictable) ending.

I really wanted to give this film a chance, thinking that at least the Polívka-Polívková family duo in the role of father and daughter would squeeze something out of it (in the end, unfortunately, they are only in one scene together). However, Women at the Peak is a non-humorous and unentertaining audience scam, created solely so the producer can get paid and for its sponsors. The film’s creators also either didn't care at all, or they did care, but their creative, filmmaking and storytelling skills weren't good enough for anything better (both possibilities are sad). The film is a terribly lazy, unimaginative and simply unsuccessful romantic winter comedy that is essentially not funny or romantic at all. Instead of gags, the film is full of gender stereotypes and people making fun of vegans, and the loving tension between the main heroine, a vegan, organic-loving mother from Prague, who gives everyone celery can't light a fire in the fireplace, and a clumsy rough mountaineer who only needs beer and bacon to be happy, only happens because it fits into the script, not because it’s a natural, believable and an unforced consequence of the character's development in the film. The film is a poorly implemented conglomeration of scenes on all fronts, which is quite painful to watch.

In terms of content, this a clearly bad film. Its schematic, weak and sloppy story about the journey of the characters from point A to point B serves only as a necessary link for a series of comedy sketches and action scenes with zombies, all with fluctuating levels of quality. The film of course copies the first Zombieland, but this time it's all much simpler, more straightforward, more predictable and, overall, somewhat worse in all respects. Moreover, after ten years, the main characters have degraded to annoying one-dimensional caricatures. The film is fully aware that they are unbearable, but rather than doing anything about it, it uses these aspects as a source of humour (and builds a panopticon around them of deliberately annoying and exaggerated, demented side characters consisting of personalized stereotypes, so that the main characters appear more sympathetic to the audience). The film is partly saved by a fairly entertaining level of comedy, and in places by the actors, who obviously enjoyed filming it, which the audience can see. Only every third to fourth joke works, but with the huge cadence of gags, it doesn't matter much.

The (recent) six-day interview with director William Friedkin is behind the creation of this comprehensive documentary. In the interview, Friedkin not only tells a detailed and amusing story about The Exorcist and how it came about (as if he had filmed it last week), but he also doesn’t forget to mention a few fantastic stories from filming, filmmaking techniques used in specific scenes, a detailed analysis of individual motifs and creative intentions, and the fact that viewers often have a tendency to look for more in the film than what was intended. An incredible flood of information accompanied by often surprisingly fascinating visuals (not only from the Exorcist). For film fans, it’s an absolute feast. Just make sure you watch The Exorcist first.