Matty

The first Twister is still a perfect summer blockbuster that hasn’t aged even in the action scenes, which are impressive thanks mainly to their sound design and the well-portrayed characters. At first glance, the new Twisters appears to be only a superficial update, with younger and better-looking actors who are able to convince you that climatology is hot. The setting is the same. We again watch two teams of storm chasers rushing after tornados. The dangerous situations (and science) again serve to bring the protagonists together. This time, however, they are not separated spouses (so this isn’t a tense variation on the marriage comedy), but representatives of two very different worlds: a cultivated urban lady and loud dude from the American South. The Southern setting is crucial for the story, as socio-cultural prejudices are overcome along with the traumas. The film implies that without cooperation and without stepping out of the position of mere viewers creating exclusive content for our YouTube channels, we cannot face disasters (the climax aptly takes place partly in a cinema, the last refuge before the apocalypse). I found the plot-driving transformation of the two main characters from witnesses to participants in the action who pursue the collective interest rather than their own personal interest to be sufficiently compelling and emotionally and intellectually stimulating that I could enjoy the film, even with all of its cliches, as a pleasantly straightforward disaster movie from the Spielberg school. 75%

Watching Her Drunken Diary is sometimes like coming across an article titled “Ten Signs That You Have a Drinking Problem” among Prosecco ads in a lifestyle magazine. It’s a bit baffling when you use advertising aesthetics while pointing out in a cautionary way how alcohol ads connote luxury and such pleasure that your grey life will be inundated with saturated colours. However, this film is not pointless. ___ In the protagonist’s life, the colours gradually fade until shades of green predominate (her return to herself is unsurprisingly symbolised by red, the colour of life). As in melodramas, the development here happens not in the psychological depths, but mainly on the surface, whether that involves coloured surfaces or the protagonist’s body with her increasingly puffy face and a larger number of spots and bruises. And also as in melodramas, Míša’s fall is fatalistically reported starting with the first shot (and then a few flashforwards and an encounter with a homeless man). Otherwise, life with alcohol is realistically depicted as a spiral, when a person cannot escape the pattern of addiction and falls into the same shit again and again (and generally falls and stumbles...often like the characters in Marie Poledňáková’s comedies).___The protagonist’s predisposition to addiction is indicated by one brief flashback from her childhood with her alcoholic father. We similarly have to infer her background and what she actually does for a living (in any case, money is not a problem for her, as she moves to a large apartment in the centre of Prague). Her Drunken Diary is not really a psychological or social drama, though it does show conspicuous signals here and there that alcohol is a society-wide problem due to, among other things, the normalisation of drinking at parties, at home, after work... For me, this was mainly a love story about a woman who chose between a bottle of wine and a partner and ultimately – during the final act, when a lot of things suddenly happen all at once and everything is absurdly condensed – decides to focus on love primarily of herself. Thanks in part to limiting it to the most typical situations, I think this story may be inspiring for a lot of people in the target audience, especially in combination with the accompanying prevention campaign. 65%

Fifty Shades of Grey, but done a bit differently. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh could have used Amy Winehouse’s story to construct an emotional drama about fame, addiction, voyeurism and the excessive demands placed on how famous women are supposed to behave and look (mainly decently). Instead of that, they decided to take an absolutely dull, mediocre approach to telling a bittersweet fable about a girl unhappily in love, who wants to be a mother (which is her main desire and greatest vulnerability). Only a minimum of space is dedicated to the process of composing and recording music or to any effort to understand the deeper causes of Amy’s predisposition to addiction (no, I really don’t think it was because of a broken heart and the death of her grandmother). It’s as if the film wasn’t made for Amy and her fans. The main point of Back to Black seems to be to clear the name of the two men who opportunistically exploited the singer’s vulnerability and contributed to her tragic demise. Here they behave – at least toward the protagonist – in an exemplary manner with exaggerated concern (for comparison, watch the documentary from 2015). Even if we set aside the ethically questionable retouching of reality and laying blame on the victim and her impulsive behaviour, Back to Black remains a below average film that is unnecessary in every respect (including Marisa Abela’s performance, unfortunately). It gains depth and veracity only once, during the closing credits, which feature Nick Cave’s heartfelt performance of his ballad “Song for Amy”. 40%