lamps

If the purpose of the film was to put the slick Pitt in an even more iconic light than Wolfgang Petersen did in his conquest of Troy, then the task is accomplished. But if Fury was supposed to have any intellectual or historical value beyond the insultingly unoriginal "War is an abomination" and "Let's not lump the Germans together", Ayer failed miserably. While the ageless star and everything around him looks very cool and the viewer won't get bored, I can't think of a better example of a war movie that so perfectly presents the utterly ridiculous American view of the nature of direct combat and the all-encompassing wartime contributions of their intrepid ancestors. It’s OK in the cinema with popcorn, but in 10 years nobody will rewatch the best scenes on blu-ray. 65%

It's not a genre gem through and through, because firstly, it lacks an obvious reason to fiercely root for the hero and hate the villain, and secondly, because Whiplash is absolutely unlike any "genre" film to date. An original among musical movies that captivates not with its story, but with its breathtaking combination of symbolic images (details of eyes or drumsticks, bleeding hands), the soundtrack, the excellent performances (Simmons is almost on the level of the greats like Nicholson or Pacino), and a brilliant conclusion that does not last a second less or more than it should. I'm looking forward to the next viewing, I haven't felt this close to the fifth star in months.

A brilliant biopic, nicely understated in the British way of exaggerating the central character, who, despite his undeniable genius and sad physical disability, is portrayed as a sensitive, funny and loving person. But most importantly, for two hours we have the opportunity to fully feel the immense strength and sincerity of the relationship that prevails between the protagonists despite the minor conflicts. And Eddie Redmayne more than deserved his Oscar as he gives an absolutely amazing performance. The second time around, the film, apart from its formal mastery, probably won't offer me much, but this is quality work that must be appreciated.

I somehow I didn't manage to grasp the meaning of what the film was trying to say, and I don't understand why it’s more than two hours long. It's not about nothing, the story is based on real events (I hope you can hear the irony) and embraces themes of desire, moral and sporting decline, brotherly love and murder, but the film as a whole is terribly disjointed and its ambiguous ideas are arranged in a downright chaotic manner. For those two hours, we watch the stubborn oaf Tatum from the point of view of the disturbed millionaire Carell, waiting with growing impatience to see how their relationship will develop and culminate, but nothing actually happens. Nothing from the point of view of the script, which fails to build up, and nothing from the point of view of the actors, who, with the exception of Ruffalo, go through the story with unchanging expressions, giving the viewer no opportunity for any emotional experience. A noble borefest packed with famous names that I really don't want to see again.

Well... no. I can appreciate an action flick with higher formal ambitions from time to time, but I also demand that its contents not strongly irritate me, which here unfortunately wasn’t the case. Equalizer looks good, the performances are fine and the sound design is great, but I found it boring and irritating most of the time. Is it exaggerated? Of course, but it doesn’t matter. Is it narratively dumb and disjointed? Yes, unfortunately very much so. And yet it looks so, so good :/ 60%

I have no idea where exactly the audience is getting wrong in the course of absorbing this film’s visual and auditory information, but I find it really unfortunate. Selma not only fully, and of course very subjectively, charts the basic principles of King's noble rebellion and succeeds in realistically outlining the complex political and social situation of the time, but also poignantly presents the moving story of an ordinary man who tries to rise above the problems of ordinary life and sacrifice himself for the good of others. The upside of this is both the direction, which successfully compensates for the documentary nature of the sets and the academic snobbery of the subject matter with a natural blend of human emotion and historical fact, and the actors, whose embodiment of the characters makes us fully believe in them and sympathise with everyone who tries to help King on his seemingly hopeless mission. And some of the scenes are so emotionally powerful and evocatively shot that I wouldn't even be afraid to call the direction excellent. Selma may soon be forgotten, as watching it seems to require a certain mental attachment to the subject matter in question, but the harsh criticism is unwarranted this time. 75%

The Judge is a quality film that deals mostly with real emotions and is adorned with truly brilliant performances that make it as smooth to watch as the aerial pirouettes of pink elephants after taking LSD, but with the arrival of the closing credits, it leaves us with the feeling that this unique creative line-up deserved something more than this kind of easygoing filmmaking. Downey's scatterbrained egotistical character is irresistible, but unfortunately he represents the only rebellious and prominent element in an otherwise precisely measured process where the fates of the supporting players are irrelevant, while the development of the dramatic relationship between the two central characters sets a cinematic precedent. Duvall gives a terrific performance, of course, but Downey is the one that’s more visible and adds more juice to the story. Everything proceeds and ends as it should, but the forcibly pushed twist with the label "family above all" just doesn’t fit into the overall context full of heartless judgments, remorse and generational disputes. Or maybe it manipulates the witnesses quite blatantly. 70%

Iñárritu doesn’t know how to produce proper humour, he only succeeds in creating the illusion of a joke, which he wraps in boring existential dialogues and motifs that are taken seriously despite the imposed superficiality. Birdman pretends that its specific form, combined with its intimate theatrical setting and the tragicomic depiction of creative decline, has something to say, but in the end we find that it has told us absolutely nothing. I have nothing against film experiments, but only on the condition that I find some sense in them and that I can enjoy their unorthodox approach. None of that was the case here, and so my only lasting memory of Birdman remains the delectable performances of Edward Norton and Michael Keaton in particular, who could easily play any superhero with an animal attribute. 60%

An impressive piece of craftsmanship where weaknesses are hard to find. But that's probably because in a biopic of this calibre that from the beginning aspire to get golden statuettes, mistakes are not allowed. The film is admittedly a very cold, emotionally detached account of a significant period in the life of its equally cold, brilliant hero, who comes across as overly mechanical thanks to the performance of master Cumberbatch, who goes through the entire story with the unchanging expression of a "mathematical nerd", but at the same time it’s an extremely honest, sympathetically old-fashioned genre film that fulfils almost all the prescribed cinematic formulas, including that of Cumberbatch's speech, for there is probably no more believable portrayal of a mathematical nerd. But praise is also due to Alexandre Desplat, the set and costume designers, and especially Mr Turing himself, whose greatness, thanks to this film, I can no longer doubt. 80%

American Sniper is not about physical suffering in the middle of a battle zone, but rather about the diametrically opposed perspectives that the war in Iraq is subjected to, both from the unsuspecting American public and the direct participants in the bloody conflict, as well as the questionable motivations that drive many young Americans toward their dream of "serving the country”. Eastwood works with a very generic cinematic equation, with his protagonist coming into the war full of enthusiasm and patriotic oaths, only to leave as a broken man who has lost his illusions of honour and the existence of goodness. But what elevates the film to above average is its undisguised aversion to jingoism, which is a flimsy band-aid for doing or perhaps returning to evil, the natural civility of emotion that makes the war and psychological levels blend beautifully, and of course Clint's formal genius, which he still retains even in his 80s. Given the many Oscar nominations, one might think that Americans have a soft spot for Eastwood, but watching American Sniper, as with Gran Torino or Million Dollar Baby, I realized that the popularity is well deserved. 80%