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The scenes with the masked killer are top-notch and the twist and the original concept also deserve thumbs up, but couldn’t it have been 15 minutes shorter? Argento often doesn’t give a toss about pace and some scenes are excessively long, which is a real shame for such a strong and impressive film. It’s enough for 4*, but I don’t think I’m willing to watch it again. 75%

This film has quite improved after a couple of days. I wouldn’t say it’s very good, it has too many cheap twists and not enough of the proper nastiness that, for instance, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre served plenty of, but I wouldn’t hesitate to say that in many aspects it’s quite special. I haven’t watched many slashers, but I like hixploitation and, on the basis of its predecessors, I know what to expect from it. But McLean doesn’t follow the known structures and conceives the villain in a pretty different way, he’s a heartless redneck butcher who, instead of the classic anonymous threat, incarnates the perils of the Australian bush – at first glance, he’s a rough geezer who wraps you around his finger and rejects the forced global folklore (a great jab at Crocodile Dundee), but he’s actually an unimaginably brutal threat that will either destroy or permanently mark you. The portrayal of the main characters and their personalities is not very interesting, but the leisurely escalation of the atmosphere works well, and when that nice geezer finally shows up, you are already nervously waiting to see what those poor souls will face in the coming hours. Another interesting thing is the structure of shifting the attention between the victims, but I think it was used and worked better when they were in pairs – McLean here keeps his feet on the ground and tries to forcefully generate an impression of realism (the inspiration on two real murders is true, but marginal and very garbled), but he doesn’t quite manage to get the right balance between a shockingly violent slasher and a more sober statement about wider social problems (if the relationship between tourists and the rough people of the sparsely populated countryside can be called that). If the second half followed one direction in a more purposeful manner, I would give it a satisfied 4*, as it is, it gets strong three.

There’s a lot to admire in Gravity – at first glance, in particular, with regards to style – but the best thing about it is that, as a whole, none of its components stand out or cover the rest and everything is in a wonderful balance, as we are used from Hollywood top films. The length of the shots and the deep spacial staging, i.e. the two main components of the opening thirty minutes, gradually change to meet the needs of the narration, always providing full support both for the smooth development of the story built around the necessary shifts and stops in that infinitely deep space, and for the maximum involvement of the viewer, whose attention is inconspicuously led from the deliberate fascination with space (not only thanks to the camera, but also through the sincere poetic rhetoric of Clooney, who provides order and direction to otherwise disorganised movement) towards the feelings of the protagonist and the fear for her life. Those 90 minutes leave no room for stumbles and everything is perfectly connected, not to mention the flawless use of other style resources like the sound, the music and the mise-en-scène, which in Cuarón’s style is a performance on its own. I don’t see any reason why not to call an expensive studio film like this a masterpiece, which, in a perfectly deliberate and organised way, manipulates the viewer, who ends up not wanting anything else. The last ten minutes are bloody nasty. I’m really looking forward to its re-release in cinemas. 95%

The first half is great: brisk, funny, politically incorrect enough, and original, but then comes the unusually stagnant filler, with the characters just moving around and boring emancipation bullshit that only someone as bold and original as Cohen could get away with. Things get back on track in the last ten minutes, which prove that this film is at its best when it relies on individual clips and gags, which isn’t that good for a feature film threading political and social insight. 65%

Certainly, a good and praiseworthy piece of work. Unfortunately, though, it was hard for me to shake the feeling that this thorough labour of three years gathering information deserves more than its modest 90 minute runtime – that could be enough to properly impress the viewer with the smartly presented contrasts (filth and darkness in the mines vs white gleaming offices; long, messy hair vs short, elegant cuts; manual labour and getting legless in a pub vs static occupation and constant mind challenges) and the social appeals around an underserved status quo and the dramatic raise of automated labour – but I didn’t feel much of a truly empathetic connection with the protagonist and his thought processes, even though I believe it’s something Jindřich Andrš truly tried to do. I also felt that the shifts between the different stages were too fast and their main ideas were always somehow relayed through not very convincing dialogues (an argument at the pub, confiding in colleagues during a fancy-dress ball). What is good on the other hand, and what I praise, are the unambiguous intelligibility and the solid line of argument, from which the film never deviates drastically. Naturally, I feel a little sorry for Tomáš, someone who after 20 years of loyal service performing what for most people is unimaginably hard work had to leave his job without any other qualifications, and the documentary shows him as he is, stating with straightforward simplicity how the “Ostrava American dream” can also come to an end in this inhospitable times. And it can also be forgiven that, with the exception of the opening minutes, the material lacks that utter brutality and psychological burden that the British kitchen sink realism from the 1960s boasted. This is nothing fundamentally revolutionary, and the time-lapse method presents many of the motifs in a very hasty and simplified way, but the true and also symbolic story of a likeable protagonist is effective and offers a welcome view into another dark page of modern automatisation, as well as the eternal flame of hope. Personally, I would have appreciated a more honest removal of the mask of the exemplary fighter and a more thorough examination of the social and psychological problems, but as a statement about one stage of life that aims to positively stimulate the self-confidence of a person who lacks a vision of the future, this interesting portrait is certainly valuable – though not so much as a timid and poorly structured appeal to society as a whole. 65%

In this case I’d like to be more sober, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a very good historical reflection that says a lot about its stormy era, but it doesn’t work at all as an inspirational story, in the last half hour, in fact, it has nothing left to talk about – and a compositionally strong climax should be par for the course for a screenwriter of Sorkin’s calibre. Anyway, the court retrospective is watchable and never gets boring, but it’s missing a dramatic impulse that will keep the curiosity and the emotions until the very last scene, something the creators try hard to do. It relies too much on the well known shadow of the evil Nixon, whose minions coldheartedly look for scapegoats, leaving aside specific personal conflicts or completely ignoring the development of the conflicted characters (Joseph Gordon-Levitt is introduced as a prosecutor who will play an important role, but the opposite is true, and for the rest of the story he’s nothing but an “antagonist” lawyer whose heart is in the right place, but whose potential conflict leads only a pretty sentimental final gesture). The actors are great, though (especially Rylance, Cohen and Langella) and the narration has a substance that’s almost too addictive to say that this is not a good, proper piece of work that you shouldn’t miss – if it wasn’t so blatantly simplifying and manipulative, it would be a fundamental film (the one we could have got if Spielberg had made it thirteen years ago). I can’t give it more than 70%, even if I wanted.

I looked forward to it, but, even as a not very ambitious wannabe easygoing flick, it’s incredibly insipid and lacking ideas. What we want from adventure fantasy with monsters (with a potentially unlimited number thereof) is entertainment with the monsters and not this tantalising and slow teenage fairytale that basically doesn’t have a story. There’s absolutely nothing memorable about it, the special effects are poor, the cliffhanger is very weak and the climax is incredibly sloppy. At least the dog and the pair of castaways were good, otherwise it’s terribly boring and the main character couldn’t have been more cookie-cutter. 40%

Basically, your typical Brooks: brilliantly funny moments (the best hands down are the Mighty Joint and the Last Supper) alternating with boring filler that, on the other hand, is not lacking author’s flair and at least some original attempts at humour. The main part with the Inquisition is a waste of potential, but the whole thing is so cute and exuberant that I would have loved to see the never made sequel with a figure skating Hitler. 65%

Is there any other documentary that everyone should watch in the XXI century? A strong statement by a wise gentleman that will sadden you, but which holds the necessary life-giving positivism of the appealing ecologist. Most of the praise is addressed not only at the “contents”, but also at the very execution of the documentary, it’s graceful connection of objective facts with a subjective appeal, the dramaturgical coherence, its intelligibility and the “minor details” like the gorgeous music and the breathtaking images. A great job and a very important message, which may have arrived late but it can also be a beginning.

A massive effort to produce a sober and as realistic as possible take on werewolf horror that at first glance offers an interesting blend of satiric crime drama with a murderous monster in the attractive setting of a snowy neo-western. The scenes with the hairy creature are great and the climax is quite surprising, but the rest is mostly unappealing family filler and an unlikeable protagonist whose actions are quite a big obstacle to the potentially tense entertainment. The humour doesn’t hurt, but other that one truly funny scene, it lacks memorable poetics and is unable to hide the fact that the ambitious creator means this very seriously, and the comedy reliefs are only pasted on the ineffective development of the characters, who themselves are ineffective. It’s OK to waste 80 minutes of your life, but we will still have to wait for a properly good werewolf film. 55%