gudaulin

The name Marilyn Monroe still resonates with film fans around the world and is to a certain extent a symbol of American post-war cinema. Her involvement in film is associated with the legend of a versatile and talented actress who was limited in her career by Hollywood studios, who imposed upon her roles of a naive and foolish blonde, despite her desire for more significant character roles. Here she had a unique opportunity to showcase her talent, and the result is tragic, even though those around her, led by her husband as the screenwriter, did their utmost to accommodate her. Arthur Miller even considered the film to be a grand gift to his wife. She repaid him with constant conflicts on set, hysterical outbursts, and chronic tardiness. Even on screen, it is evident that was not able to carry her part, despite the support of others. No, her capabilities were best suited for typecast roles, such as the sweet Sugar in Some Like It Hot. The Misfits is a film about the definitive end of the West as a territory of cowboys, cows, and freedom. The cowboys in the film survive as car mechanics or perform rodeo shows for the curious. They are not interested in romance, and they are ready to cash in on the last remaining herd of wild mustangs in the area, which represents a symbol of independence in a world bound by rules and obligations. Typically, I find fault with the script, which is saved by the performances of the talented actors. Here, I must praise the script, but despite the interesting cast, there seems to be a lack of chemistry, and instead of feeling a connection, it seems like they were actually ready to slap each other. Overall impression: 65%.

Crichton's original film Westworld presented, through the name of its famous writer and the participation of Yul Brynner as the star, the closest possible connection to the western genre, which is now perceived as an ordinary and not very interesting B-movie. Although the respected HBO was behind the production, I did not expect something so well-thought-out and captivating, and elaborate, and something that would compel me to watch the entire first season in the shortest possible time. A smart series with a complicated structure that is thought-provoking, with a humanistic focus, with ambiguous characters, and brilliantly cast and directed - what more could you ask for? Westworld plays with the popular idea of the creation of artificial intelligence, which is the responsibility of two technological visionaries - Ford and Arnold. The practical Ford is focused on business and relentlessly pursues his goal of building a giant amusement center that creates a perfect illusion of the Wild West in the 19th century. Its residents are meant to be indistinguishable from humans, nothing more than top-notch machines. His colleague Arnold realizes the consequences of their efforts and playing god begins to frighten him. He becomes an obstacle to progress and his life ends in a futile attempt to stop the project. 35 years later, he paradoxically stands in the way of Ford's society running smoothly. There are inexplicable phenomena in the behavior of the robots, employees are disappearing, tension is mounting, and change is in the air. The authors of the series play a wide-ranging and in-depth game with the viewer, confusing them, playing games on the side, and combining genres. Of course, Westworld is above all a tribute to the classic western with all its identifying features and stereotypical characters. It is also sci-fi, but lovers of romance, nerds accustomed to deciphering a multitude of references and puzzles, and fans of adventure spectacles will also find something in it for themselves. What works wonderfully is the combination and balance of intellect and emotional engagement. The complex structure of the story forces the viewer to think, while the abuse of the artificial beings evokes a wave of sympathy for their fate, not unlike the position of ancient slaves. Wealthy park visitors have the opportunity to torture, kill, and rape anyone of the robots - and they often do. While the robots represented a threat in Crichton's Westworld, in the new adaptation, they represent the more sympathetic part of the series' protagonists. Their desire to understand the meaning of their existence and for dignity humanizes them more than humans full of superiority, selfishness, and callousness. The revolt of the robots brings with it not only destruction but also hope for the restoration of moral values and humanistic ideals. It is hard to say what I would praise the most about Westworld. Is it the cunning variability of characters influenced by reprogramming or the revelation of their identity? The performance of veteran actor Anthony Hopkins as the grand, manipulative, and dangerous park boss? Or perhaps the excellent set design? Regardless, I am looking forward to the next season like a little boy. Overall impression: 95%.

I consider Petr Nikolaev an overall average filmmaker, whose style and film ideas I can exclude in advance from getting me excited. However, he managed to make a film that earned him a four-star rating once. It helps that he set the story in the unfriendly 1950s, with the theme of political persecution and the romantic motif of love bound by prison walls. I still can't shake the feeling that much more could have been extracted from the created situation and the presence of several interesting supporting characters. Even so, A Little Piece of Heaven reliably stands out from contemporary Czech production. Overall impression: 75%.

I approached The Tree of Wooden Clogs with skepticism. In 1978, it won the Golden Palm at the festival in Cannes, where the most snobbish people in the world, concentrated in one square kilometer, gather. That is a sufficient warning for an observer who knows something about the self-centeredness of the festival scene. My instincts did not disappoint me. Olmi could have been considered the inventor of the genre of fictional documentaries in the 70s, which is now so popular and widely used. He dedicated maximum energy to creating authenticity in capturing the lives of villagers in the Italian region of Lombardy. He worked with non-actors from the area in order to perfectly capture the local dialect. The film depicts the lives of five farming families living collectively on a farm and renting land from a landlord. However, comparisons to modern fictional documentaries are unfortunately not appropriate. They were created to make the documentary genre more attractive, lively, and accessible to viewers. They work with editing and professional actors, similar to entertaining fictional films. The downfall of Olmi's experiment lies in the fact that he works in real time, therefore it is very slow and, in my opinion, annoying and boring due to its murderous length. Olmi goes as far as the phenomenon of so-called slow TV today, which is completely beyond the scope of my interests. I know of three-hour films where the viewer doesn't have enough time to realize the long duration, and I know ones that subjectively last twice as long. Unfortunately, I would place The Tree of Wooden Clogs in the second category. Overall impression: 25%.

The series falls into a genre that I like, and the name of the original author should have been a guarantee, or at least a prerequisite, for solid entertainment. I should have been excited, but I approached the project with skepticism associated with the name Susanne Bier. I ironically nicknamed her the Rosamunde Pilcher of the festival scenes and consider her to be overrated on the global scale. I can imagine The Night Manager as a spy crime drama with adventurous elements about a mole deployed in an illegal organization. I can also imagine it working great under Kathryn Bigelow or decently directed by Agnieszka Holland, but with Susanne Bier, it's a disaster. The series is neither gripping nor impressive, and it's certainly not convincing. I criticize it for the lack of action and the chattiness of the series. However, I also have a problem with the style, expressive means, and emotions it relies on. Bier directs not a crime story, but a romantic miniseries made by a woman for women, where the main hero seems more like a sexual object than a secret agent. The driving forces behind his actions are love affairs and emotions in general. Seemingly incomprehensible comparisons with James Bond have their justification, even though you would look in vain for action elements in the series. The difference is that the Bond series is sexist, and filmed from the perspective of a dominant alpha male, while The Night Manager is gender-swapped. The focal point is not sex and action, but relationships. Not only the hero's love affairs but also his relationship with the main villain's son, for example. I feel no need to change anything about my rejecting attitude towards Susanne Bier's work, her handling of characters, or her storytelling. Overall impression: 45%.

Japanese mega-monsters were some of my first movie theater experiences in ancient times, and for a five-year-old boy, they were incredibly impressive with their sneaky special effects. Since then, a lot of time has passed, and my demands have multiplied many times over. I am not a fan of blockbusters and genre-wise, I am not interested in the genre of Edwards' film, so my expectations were low, and if the television hadn't served the film right under my nose, I wouldn't have bothered with it. I consider the subject matter even more infantile and outdated, especially in a time of booming special effects-based fairy tales for the whole family. However, with proper oversight, craftsmanship, and the ability to work with exaggeration appropriately, something interesting could have been created. Unfortunately, the film does not meet even minimal expectations. Once again, I had the feeling that someone had put my testicles in a vice. Edwards' Godzilla ultimately fails as an undemanding, entertaining big-budget spectacle, and it fails again in that it wants to break free from this label, using alternative elements and being more distinctive. Above all, it is simply stupid. Even within the framework of a fictional world, there should be some rules, motivation, and behavioral patterns. This is made for viewers with the intellectual level of a five-year-old child. I don't blame Godzilla for not being realistic and intelligent. You simply can't expect that from it. I do blame it, however, for not being smarter than its 70-year-old predecessors. I may have appreciated Edwards' debut film made in modest circumstances (appropriately), but here I get the feeling of insulting mediocrity. Sure, with such a high budget and technical means, it might be impossible not to shoot a few impressive, atmospheric shots, but as a whole, Godzilla is a painful defeat. An entirely different chapter is the enthusiastic comments and high ratings from some film critics, where one would expect expertise, objectivity, and an analytical perspective. Instead, I feel like they behave as if they are in a joke where a blind, deaf, and armless person is supposed to analyze an elephant. I declare that I will never watch a film about overgrown radioactive lizards again. Overall impression: 5%.

Daniel Holden was an 18-year-old somewhat impractical and far from mature student who could have had a great future ahead of him - if he hadn't been found touching the body of a strangled and abused 16-year-old schoolgirl and ritually surrounding her with flowers. Subsequently, unable to resist the focused pressure from investigators, he took responsibility for her death and spent nearly 20 years in prison, 19 of them on death row. He had already had the honor of personally meeting the executioner - one of the five appeals and subsequent postponements of the sentence came seriously at the last minute. As time passed, new investigation methods came into fashion, and DNA testing cast doubt on the old sentence. Daniel was released with the promise of a new investigation. Rectify is not a courtroom or prison drama, nor is it a crime show, at least not in the usual sense of the word. It is a psychological drama of a man deprived of his youth and thrown into a world he doesn't understand at all. He is not prepared to take care of himself, and he is overwhelmed by countless possibilities and perceptions. Moreover, for most of those around him, he remains a murderer. The girl's relatives want justice. For representatives of state power, it is unacceptable to admit that they destroyed the life of an innocent person. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, outside of prison, Daniel has long stopped being relevant. Except for a few exceptions, he actually hinders everyone. His return causes confusion, doubt, and pain. Rectify is an intimate drama about the search for lost time and motivation to stand up and start over. It does not offer itself, it is not flashy, provocative, and above all, it does not hurry. All the seasons describe just 3 weeks of Daniel's life after returning home. But if you accept its pace and atmosphere, it has a decent chance of engulfing you, and along with Daniel, you will experience quiet dramas and rejoice in the small things that just a moment ago seemed mundane and insignificant. Last but not least, the series can be seen as a reflection, not so much on the state of imprisonment in the USA, but on the phenomenon of the death penalty. The main character returns to life behind bars in his memories and confronts it with life in freedom. Rectify is a series for patient and perceptive viewers capable of capturing and appreciating psychologically believable character sketches, hypnotic soundtracks, and top-notch performances led by Aden Young as Daniel and Abigail Spencer as the energetic and devoted sister Amantha. Personally, I give the series a definite thumbs up. After Westworld, it's another series that got under my skin in a short period of time. Overall impression: 90%.

Another elaborate return to the past by Visconti, where he assists in the decline of the old elites - this time capturing the decay of the wealthy Essenbeck family, German industrialists, who succumb to the dark force of victorious fascism during the years 1933-34. After the removal of the head of the family and the escape of his antifascist successor into exile, the remaining family members are driven by the desire for power and wealth, becoming easy prey for the manipulator and whisperer, SS officer Aschenbach, as a symbol of the new order. Unfortunately, just like elsewhere, Visconti allows himself to be carried away by the depiction of decadence and his favorite sexual deviations at the expense of the persuasiveness of his characters and the story. Where famous Czechoslovak films on the same subject, The Cremator and The Shop on Main Street, are disturbing and exceptionally powerful because they stem from a deep understanding of the conditions at that time and the understanding of historical processes, Visconti manages to create an absolutely gaudy and forcedly colorful poster that appears artificial. Aschenbach's disruptive demonic effort seriously makes no sense, he could easily charm an old man as well, and the German Chancellor had an exceptionally favorable relationship with the big industrialists, as both sides needed and complemented each other. Yes, Röhm was a homosexual, but it significantly weakened his position of power and certainly did not mean that the meeting of the SA leadership turned into a homosexual orgy. The atmosphere that Visconti wanted to associate with Hitler's regime could be found much more in the cabarets and luxury brothels of the Weimar Republic. On the contrary, for Nazism, the typical call was for a return to old virtues, and with a few exceptions, such as Göring's hedonism and Goebbels' womanizing, Nazi leaders acted as exemplary petit bourgeois, and that's how Nazi ideology appeared as well. Visconti's parade of decadence, animal instincts, and twisted characters did not generate sympathy in me, but on the other hand, the director had mastery over his craft, utilized quality actors, and did not bore me. It didn't make me angry enough to give it a rating lower than three stars, even though it would have appealed to me much more without the elements of theatricality and pathos. Overall impression: 55%.

Representatives of American studios will probably find my well-intentioned advice unconvincing, but just in case, here you go: When you next want to rehabilitate a fairy tale archvillain, don't skimp and hire a capable screenwriter alongside the cast and crew. I have nothing against alternative stories and different perspectives - I can even accept a gingerbread house being portrayed as a raid by ill-behaved imps destroying an old witch's dwelling, who in a sudden burst of emotion decides to deal with her lack of protein. Just write and film it in a way that makes sense within the context of the fairy tale world and its rules. Unfortunately, Maleficent fails in this aspect. The king, who faces a curse from his only daughter, the queen of the magical world, doesn't have her guarded like his most precious possession by an army of servants, but instead entrusts her upbringing to three clearly inept and quarrelsome fairies - representatives of the world with which he is at war. Nobody watches over the girl, and she regularly meets with the queen of the magical realm without any problems. Except for Maleficent, the other characters are underdeveloped, and in the end, the film relies on traditional Hollywood weapons - set design and special effects. Angelina handles her part with ease, while the other actors don't bring much to the table. I'm somewhat bothered by the visual style that caters to kids and the biggest kitsch enthusiasts. But then again, what can I expect from a family spectacle? Overall impression: 45%.

I admit that I enjoy similar movies to this one. Ones that are elaborate, technically precise with great camera work and soundtrack, and that attempt to convey a message while providing space for the viewer's imagination. The Lost City of Z is a film about human courage, the desire for knowledge, and the obsession to achieve a set goal. It tells a story from a time when explorers had to be adventurers and men, and when it truly mattered to push one's limits and consciously calculate that one might be saying goodbye to loved ones for the last time. In terms of genre, it combines adventure spectacle (without the beloved action and fantasy elements) with the biographical story of Major Fawcett, whose task was to map the region known as the "green hell" in the Amazon basin. A generation later, travelers were already using planes and motorboats, while Percy Fawcett resembled the renowned 19th-century adventurers equipped only with a compass and immeasurable determination to fill the vast blank spaces on the map. I like The Lost City of Z because it is a mature film in every sense, making no concessions to family audiences or teenagers, and not relying on emotions and sentiments. If I had to dwell on something, it would perhaps be the film's idealism of Fawcett's relationship with indigenous cultures, which corresponds to the opinions of modern urban liberals of Euro-American civilization and does not fit into the mindset of the British officers raised with the civilizational superiority of the white man and the elitism of a member of the British Empire at the height of its power. The film also could have been more atmospheric in the Latin American part, with more focus on magical realism elements. There could have been more scenes like the expedition's entrance into the opera straight from the jungle or the hallucinogenic scene of being captured by an indigenous tribe. Nevertheless, I give it an honest 4 stars and an overall impression of 80%.