Othello

Five metalheads lead four hobbits through Middle-earth. Extended version, of course. I was going to slap the first half of the tome with 4 stars because the brevity and abbreviation of the various installments bothered me a bit, I mean when you think about how much work must have gone into it. Jackson surprisingly handles the action scenes very well (both of them) and they work better than the dialogue due to the aforementioned disappointment. The film especially has some memorable parts for me, such as (in the extended version) the introduction to the Shire and the arrival of Gandalf, or the shot of the eponymous character falling into the depths of Moria. The music needs no commentary, it's incredible and one of the best soundtracks ever. Otherwise I highly recommend the heavily extended version, it really makes the film even better and especially clarifies some of the motivations of the characters (especially the relationship between Aragorn and Boromir). Moreover, it adds my favorite part, which is Galadriel's farewell to Gimli, where I really laughed. Finally, it's just a pity that due to the brevity of the scenes, the performances of the actors involved don't stand out too much, but of course it is plenty enough for Sean Bean to give a perfect performance. Just a fantasy movie as it should be.

A smaller and grittier The Shawshank Redemption. I haven't liked Defoe since I was a kid, but he was perfect here, Danny Trejo is my secret crush, and I like Rourke too, even though I didn't recognize him at all here. The direction is decent and tries not to take your eyes off the camera, so scenes like the razor in the shower, or the close-up of the slashing of the vein, for example, will make the weaker characters turn away with a guffaw. Some of the glimpses of prison life are hard to believe and I didn't really buy them, but what the hell... It was a hell of a good watch, and the last line of the film, "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven," pretty much sums up what this is all about.

The duty of every respected Jew to show people how horrible the Holocaust was, using the resources at that person's disposal, led Maestro Polanski to come to terms with the past with The Pianist. And it does indeed fulfill the agreed assignment. Throughout the film, the Nazis are disgusting, stupid, narrow-minded pigs, while the Jewish community suffers and despairs unjustly. What we all know, and anyone who doesn't know it or denies it is an asshole. Meanwhile, the story of Władysław Szpilman unfolds (the similarity to Vladek Spiegelman from the Maus comics purely coincidental?), a brilliant pianist who finds it increasingly difficult to escape deportation. He is actually behind one of the few innovations compared to other war films, and that is the beautiful piano solos that the main character creates (and playing the piano without being able to touch the keys is definitely one of the most beautiful scenes in the film). Otherwise, the film does not bring anything new, which would perhaps not have mattered so much and I might have reached five stars if it were not for the fact that English is spoken in Poland and I can never get over these things.