Malarkey

95% of the fame of this fairy tale is thanks to the dubbing which is so genius that it turned an ordinary Russian fairy tale into such an experience that we need to revisit it every New Yearsʼ Eve. For peace in our nation.

It is true that the movie has supernatural tendencies when one soldier after another go missing from the camp. But at the same time, you could hardly see a more realistic portrayal of life in a camp. The soldiers sleep, read books, exercise, contemplate the mountains, kill not only time, and they all dream of not breaking mentally. And maybe that’s what this movie is about, not about the supernatural and missing soldiers. On top of that, I have to admit that everything is kept together by the great Jérémie Renier.

Fede Alvarez really captured my attention since Panic Attack!. But at the time, I had no idea that his creative skills would take a turn towards Sam Raimi and Timur Rodrigez. I am not saying that it’s bad, I just think that he could do better. That is very visible in this movie. Even though it pretends to be a horror movie, I would describe it rather as a thriller with illogical situations similar to those in horror movies. In this case, though, I don’t really care because the movie is mostly about the idea and the atmosphere, so it is fine when the director helps himself out with some illogicality. For example, I have to say that two of the three thieves in this movie have nine lives like a cat, because what they survive would be impossible even for Chuck Norrisʼs third cousin. But well... yeah, at least there is something to watch.

After watching this movie I realized how hard modern romantic movies have it. Then, all it took was one smile of Audrey Hepburn and you were on your way to the movie of the year. Nowadays, the more original the movie with a punchline larger than Beverly Hills, the fewer reasons we have to immediately forget it. But here, I enjoyed more Audreyʼs cat than Audrey herself and since she acted like a douche towards it near the end of the movie, I give Breakfast at Tiffanyʼs three stars.

It is clear to me what the creators wanted to build the whole story on. James White was supposed to disgust us with his behavior initially, so that we would feel sorry for him in the end. And he got away with it. The story is about him, but the main point of the story is his sick mom. Furthermore, there are very solid acting performances but also a series of nonsensical acts from James who copes with his mother’s illness in his own way. An interesting movie that proves mainly that Christopher Abbott is a very skillful actor and we can probably expect a lot from him.

A Spanish director decided to introduce us to one very difficult day in the Balkans and he got an international cast that is actually flawless. On top of that, all of the Balkans were immortalized in his native Spain and you cannot tell at all. A Perfect Day is simply a great movie. It shows again how meaningless the war in the Balkans was. Watching it reminded me of the movie No Mans Land, which has a similar message. The difference is that this movie approaches the situation from the point of view of the UN. I wonder if it is a coincidence that Benicio Del Toro managed to surprise me so nicely twice in the same year. You will not see such ordinary, genuine, but at the same time strongly human performances just anywhere. The Balkans are probably a magnet for similar stories.

Another French small-scale movie that took inspiration from Amélie but at the same time, it is holding itself back a bit. Everything else is compensated by the idea which a normally thinking person could never come up with. And all that is left is for Benoît Poelvoorde to finish the rest, and suddenly you have sowed the seeds of the most interesting and original French comedy of the modern time. Personally, I have to say that Benoît convinced me after a series of movies that he is one of the best European actors of today. It’s a pity that his character here is bad rather than funny. In any case, the film itself is definitely worth watching. The Brand New Testament is capable of surprising you more than once and of captivating you with its world.

“This one can do this, that one can do that and all together they are doing much.” – The Czech Christmas classic.

The Finnish have a gift among their Scandinavian brothers. To write uncompromising, cynic comedies that contain absolutely brilliant humor, and on top of that, a bit of truth. The Grump is one of those and I have to say that the music of Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson only added to its uniqueness and thus created a really great movie, from which I would maybe cut a few scenes so that it wouldn’t be so long. But otherwise it‘s a great movie.

What if we… hahaha… played… hahaha… for souls?!