Lima

You only realise how abysmal the difference is between the songs of the first 4 brilliant albums (from “Kill ´Em All” to “Justice For All”) and the rest after the slightly above average "Black Album", i.e. boring, dull and grey. The good old days of the 80s and the first half of the 90s are just not coming back. But it's still admirable. The problems of the band are well-known (they invite a psychologist to record new songs and rehearsals because they hate each other, the atmosphere in the rehearsal room is always gloomy), but they still don't outwardly resemble something that has already gone through burnout syndrome several times. Playing for two and a half hours at full intensity is worthy of admiration. If only they'd cut down on the boring new stuff and add more classics (I don't know any friends or peers who listen to Metallica who are into their current work), and it would be a full-on success.

Lucio Fulci's last really good film. His typical eye fetish is taken to the extreme here (I'm not lying when I write that there are a good 30 close-ups of eyes), but the plot makes a lot of sense, as it's based on a good short story by E.A. Poe (some of whose motifs were successfully flirted with by Roger Corman in the 60s), some of the murders are laughably naive and some are solidly executed, and there's a really decent soundtrack for Fulci's films. As for the violence that is so typical of Fulci, it’s not so naturalistic, and he’s relatively sparing with the blood, though he coaxes the whole thing with the insight of a reliable craftsman.

“YOU CAN´T RAPE ME! I LOVE SEX!“, or, as Roger Corman said: "It's all about asses, tits and action." Yeah, the late 1960s and '70s were a blast in the Philippines. The country was grateful to the Americans for its liberation from Japanese rule, and Hollywood filmmakers felt they could make worthwhile films there. You have a jungle, you have beaches, you have girls, you have guns and everything is cheap! This documentary focuses mostly on the story of the production company New World, which set up shop there, joined forces with local talented (although that may be a strong word) filmmakers and it was a roller coaster ride. Their films were then marketed to the world not as "Filipino movies" but as "jungle action movies". It all started with Gerardo de Leon and especially Eddie Romero, two Filipino director legends who under the motto "What sells best? The 3 Bs! Blood, Breasts and Beasts!“, began producing cheap, obscure exploitation B-movies. It started with Terror Is a Man, which was followed by such gems as Brides of Blood , Beast of Blood , Mad Doctor of Blood Island, etc. etc., all under the directorial supervision of Romero in particular. At the beginning of the 1970s, Roger Corman came in as a producer, joining forces mainly with Romero, and after his film about naughty nurses was a commercial success, he got the idea for a film about women in a prison camp, with nude shower scenes, some torture, lesbian sex, etc, and produced The Big Doll House, which enjoyed great success and gave birth to the women in prison genre, and it was followed by, among others Women in Cages, The Big Bird Cage. They introduced a new star, Pam Grier, who’s still admired by Tarantino to this day (she starred in Jackie Brown) and who was aptly described by her acting colleague Sid Haig as: "She had everything the audience loved. She had sparkle, was good looking, had big tits and was smart." The women in prison films were replaced by action films, backed by another legend, Cirio H. Santiago, and his TNT Jackson, which, following the popularity of blaxploitation films and their all-black actors, featured a kung-fu black woman in the lead role, while the massively successful Firecracker featured a kung-fu white woman, Fly Me featured a kung-fu stewardess, etc. Tarantino himself has admitted several times that Santiago was a source of inspiration. It also mentions the obscure Filipino star Weng-Weng, a dwarf who plays Agent 000 in the serious-minded "Bond-like" movies, where he spouts kung fu from his little body, flies in a hovercraft, uses an umbrella instead of a parachute and slaps beautiful models. There is also mention of Corman's films, as a response to the huge success of Spielberg's Jaws, such as Up from the Depths, with a ridiculous-looking deadly shark, as well as The Twilight People, where the main character is The Bat Man - a Filipino with bat wings, who was supposed to draw Batman fans to the cinemas. Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was open to the filmmakers, also gets a mention, with the most piquant reference being how Coppola, whose famous Apocalypse Now was also filmed in the Philippines, borrowed helicopters for the film, which had actually killed rebels in the south of the country shortly before the scene of the bombing of the Vietnamese village. The documentary ends by mentioning why they stopped filming in the Philippines (because of Muslim extremists in the south, banks didn't want to insure film shoots) and most importantly, Star Wars changed everything, Its release in 1977 changed audiences’ tastes, who now demanded big-budget special effects films, and grindhouse cinemas began to disappear, bringing the end of low-budget films in cinemas, which moved mainly to VHS, when even the Philippines became expensive.

The world of cinema offers many surprising obscurities, and this is one of them. What do we have here? A Mexican fairytale stew that includes Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb, an evil witch who turns villagers into obedient hopping monkeys (literally), there's the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and his friend Little Giant, who are sentenced to death for their incompetence by a circus leader, because they failed in their fairytales; there are robots, hirsute cavemen, a dragon as a terrifying flame-spewing puppet, a good fairy and other characters you won't even remember in that mess of a plot. 90% of the film is shot in nice sets, but the make-up effects are hideous and clumsy (even Peter Jackson in his early days baked nicer ones in his oven at home for Bad Taste), there a few songs you can quite get over, but the plot concoction not so much. I'm glad I saw it, because B-movie obscurities are my hobby, but I wouldn't give it a second chance. In the end, the catchiest part of the whole thing is the title, Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters, well who wouldn't buy it.

It¡’s known to Western audiences as a cult bad movie and a bizarre experience all in one. In a rather unique setting (the whole studio set must have cost an awful lot of money), it tells the story of Santa Claus, who, as if in the manner of the KGB, spies on children (with binoculars, an eavesdropping device in the form of an ear on a satellite dish) to see if they are good or up to mischief, employs a magician named Merlin to make dreaming powder, a blacksmith with bizarrely glued-on chest hair to make a patent key that unlocks all the doors, massages his belly with a vibrating belt to lose weight so he can fit into the chimneys, and laughs constantly throughout the film like a stoner. His adversary is the devil, dressed in a red jumpsuit, whose job it is to persuade children to steal and break windows with stones and, most importantly, he tries to blackmail Santa, which, if he doesn't succeed, will result in him eating only ice-cram cake as punishment, which, as he says, "isn't good for his digestive system". The kids utter morsels of wisdom like stealing is bad; it's all so positive and sunny that you almost want to cheer for the three little bastards waiting for Santa on the roof by the chimney to tie him up in a sack and make him their slave. Add to that the constant sound of "Jingle bells, jingle bells" (over and over again, until your brain wants to jump out of your head), and if you can survive the initial terribly boring quarter-hour long parade of children from all over the world, when the names of countries on Santa's monitor and their inhabitants – children – singing local folk songs, then you can survive everything. It’s so incredibly bizarre and by the end you’ll be so mentally tired that not even Santa will be able help you.

Pomo, you just didn't get it. This isn't "sloppily edited", this is the brilliant creative intent of Nolan. The way he works with time in this film, how he tells three storylines through different time spans and then glues them together with the surgical precision of a master watchmaker, letting them intersect at the end to achieve a cathartic effect is simply admirable. Brilliant screenwriting. And this film has such high production values that I wouldn't hesitate to compare it to David Lean's war epics. This film will be the subject of extensive essays in film schools in the future, and film theorists will discuss it until judgement day. And it’ll get Oscars for sure.

This film has character. On the one hand, it goes as far as possible against the fans of the game franchise, but at the same time it tries to make a distinctive artistic concept of the Assassin universe. The passages set in medieval Spain are visually stunning, the depiction of the Animus is boldly different (and better!) than we know from the games, and while it left me emotionally cold, I appreciate the personality that Kurzel brought to the table, and I can sense from it his desire to make the best possible film that isn't just a boring descriptive retelling of the game. The highly artistic Kurzel simply entertains me. It's a pity that people won't appreciate his honest approach and that there won't be a sequel.

James Gray is a director that doesn't seem to belong in today's world. This is how films were told in the 1950s and 60s, in the era of David Lean's thoughtful big movies, i.e. slowly, deliberately, with an emphasis on character portrayal, with a strong lead (the charismatic Hunnam was an ideal choice). Today's spoiled kids, addicted to Fast and Furious, Marvel and similar crap on steroids, let them go somewhere else, they wouldn’t appreciate this. This favors a strong story, and I like it that way. PS: Charlie Hunnam is a stud. There aren’t many more charismatic actors than him today. I hope that the lack of commercial success of his last two films won’t kill his career with producers.

It's kind of everyday poetry. This film flows so pleasantly, there is nothing overdone, there are no deep overwrought emotions (even the unpleasant event in the end is accepted by the main character with stoic calmness) and Paterson's poems, some of which I really liked, float above it all. The whole thing is thrown into a kind of chill-out mode, as Paterson slowly and deliberately recites his poems, the story flows quietly and is very nice to watch. And Adam Driver is a great actor. Great. He’s wasted in the Star Wars circus (even Scorsese has figured that out).

The first half, set in India, is almost worthy of a full rating, it makes you realise how spoiled and pampered our Western civilisation is, with all the packed supermarkets, hygiene standards and plenty of drinking water. The Indian realities are fantastically rendered here, last seen so impressively in a Hollywood studio film 9 years ago in Slumdog Millionaire. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is a drawn out thing that could have been told in 10 minutes, while emotionally it only slightly touched me. It’s a shame, the potential was there. This film is proof of what masters the Weinstein brothers are at promoting their films in the pre-Oscars season, the boys are able to push it beautifully with academics and journalists, the nominations are out of whack.