Malarkey

I’d been pretty much looking forward to this new Mel Gibson movie, but the result threw me off balance a bit. At first, I wanted to warm up by watching the interview that had been prepared for us by Pomo featuring the director and Mel. But the thing was that while the director was full of standard French arrogance, Mel was just sort of standing there and he didn’t really care about anything. So, I was hoping that at least the movie would save the day, but it didn’t. While Mel put in his standard performance, I guess the guy behind the camera must have been drunk or something. It was a strange attempt at a refined shaky camera, which did present nice shots taken at interesting places, but at some points the shakiness was really annoying. Who I also found annoying was the daughter of Mel’s, and that didn’t change until the end of the movie. As they say, there is power in simplicity. In this movie, that simplicity was a bit too straightforward. However, the final action sequence was OK. Too bad that Mel once again got talked into a small-scale flick.

Sometimes I say to myself that every other Finnish movie is weird. Some of them are weirder and some are less weird. This one is a bit weirder, but it uses static shots to present a “normal” story. It’s black and white, strange, often lengthy and mostly dull.

HBO gave the world another great TV show. A show that offers the interesting story of a guy whose world went topsy-turvy overnight. But he was lucky enough that he met a bunch of people who want to put the effort in and do something about his life. And these people put in absolutely perfect acting performances, including the guy. You see, Riz Ahmed presents a model change of his character from a humble and shy Pakistani boy into a tough convict who is not scared even of the toughest black guy. But John Turturro portrays an excellent character as well, who was doing a great job in the main plotline, but I also liked his sad secondary plotline involving the sad and unfortunate chick. And the show offers similar complex plotlines including the police investigator, the promising lawyer and also the other lawyer who is the public prosecutor. You see this show will get everybody with its honesty, ordinariness, incredible realism, humanity and mainly it asks the question what is the value of life and how little is needed for each and every personto start seeing it completely differently that they have in their life so far. An amazing show, and although it is a court-room drama, I wasn’t bored for even a minute.

A group of youngsters as unpleasant as a squirrel in your underpants. But the premise somehow saves the day and although it looks terribly cheap, the movie will eventually catch your attention. And at the end, it will give you a considerable shock with the ending. Nevertheless, it was quite nice that the authors keep coming up with interesting ideas within realistic sci-fi and they make the effort to turn that into a movie. It’s a pity that the youngsters seemed like they were transported from Melrose Place and like their dialogues were written by Danielle Steel.

I guess I haven’t seen a movie that would present a better description of the situation in the USA during the economic crisis. Excellent acting performances by Sally Field, Danny Glover and John Malkovich come together with a story that includes all the positive and negative things that you could encounter at those times. Get ready for tornadoes, a sea of cotton, a black guy… Then also for people who respect people of all races, but also for people who dress up in white robes and who are trying to exterminate black people. This film contains all those things and it manages to join all that into such a nice human story that it’s a pleasure to watch it for the almost two hours.

Today’s filmmakers could use this movie as an example of how to shoot a great historical story. All you need is a couple of stage props (we’ve got plenty of those), every now and then some honest dialogues that don’t spare some honest foul language that could be heard in a dive bar and Rudolf Hrušínský, who radiated fear and respect as if he was some arch-demon. I didn’t feel well watching this. Quite the contrary. I literally felt sick. And it was not only due to the quality of the actors, but also of the score that put me into such moods that few historical movies could. I tip my hat off. The only pity is that you really have to follow all the details carefully if you don’t want to get lost in the story. But it’s definitely not an easy watch.

It’s nice that Pierce Brosnan has started out with these romantic comedies by the end with his Bond career and that he has a fair number of beautiful women around him. Here, it’s Jessica Alba and Salma Hayek, who at least gave the movie a bit of charm. Otherwise, it was a slice of one professor’s life. He goes there, does that. He moves from point A to point B. He gets a beer and hooks up with someone. In the morning, he wakes up, goes to teach and it starts all over again. Practically zero story, just an amalgamation of scenes and pretty actresses.

Adam was just a jackass. I didn’t get how all the women in this movie bought his act, especially the mom who kept asking about him and she had this nonsensical desire in her eyes. I’d shun her, just like I’d shun the entire family. Adam has outright broken that family apart and I’ve got a feeling like I don’t want anything to do with any Adam at all anymore.

What could Batman vs Superman possibly have offered? Most of all, a stupid story full of nonsense and nothing the viewer could grasp onto. Be ready for the fact that there is and there always will be just one Batman – Christian Bale. Also, Henry Cavill will never be a successful Superman no matter how hard he tries. I feel as if DC had already combined two very different worlds back then in the comic simply because they didn’t know what to do anymore. Personally, I think it doesn’t make sense at all and I pity all the people involved in the movie, because it’s a completely pointless comic-based piece that came out during a time when the whole world is already full of those and a mediocre one simply won’t do anymore.

The camerawork is definitely charming. The only problem is that the camera basically showed pictures of people’s lives in Brazil in the early 20th century and completely shoved away the story that tried to get to the surface ... but in vain.