Malarkey

Because I’m not American, I have never heard about that host who went against Trump in her show while the whole nation was watching. So the film barely aroused my interest. The thing I enjoyed was looking at Margot, Nicole a Charlize. And I’m not talking just about their beauty, but about how the make-up artist managed to make them look almost unrecognizable. But that’s about it.

The thing I liked about A Certain Kind of Silence is that even though it’s from a debuting director, it gives an impression of a modern, rather decent European drama, albeit without a usual feature of many similar films – emotions. However, in case of A Certain Kind of Silence it’s to the film’s advantage. It proves that we’ve got creators who are able to keep up with the times.

Lately, I’ve got a feeling that when I watch a new film by Pedro Almodóvar, I’ve already seen it before. I wonder if it’s a sign of creative recycling. Antonio Banderas is not bad here, but the whole film is rather average, not really about art but about Pedro’s extravaganza and his need to express himself by filmmaking once in a while so that he can let us alone for some time after that. And because he’s a national artist, Penélope and Antonio are still willing to help him out with that.

Who had the terrifying idea to turn Aladdin into a musical? It’s like watching a three-hour long Bollywood opus and enjoying how everyone is dancing and everything around is incredibly colorful. The only good thing about the movie is Will Smith, even though some people might protest that a genie shouldn’t be black. However, Will Smith is the only reason for which this film is even worth watching. All the rest (apart from the opening show jumping scene) is too horrible for words.

This film is hardly a surprise. It’s 2020, the Oscars are drawing near so we need to make another sad story about American slavery, with a lead role played by some new black actress or actor so that we fulfil Hollywood standards. And even though it sometimes doesn’t turn out so bad, usually it’s a fail. Just like in case of Harriet. It would’ve been okay as an average movie randomly watched on daytime TV, but the Oscar nomination puzzles me. It might be enough for Hollywood, but not for everybody else.

From the beginning it’s clear that the creators were trying to be original here. Already in the opening credits, they serve you a scene the tension of which will unsettle everyone who has begun to enjoy this movie. At this moment it’s clear that we’re in for some weird filmmaking. In the end, however, it wasn’t that weird; the movie just seemed kind of undecided about what exactly it was going to be. It did have a few interesting ideas, one of those being the music by Sia. Her touch is clear from the music and even though it’s not my usual cup of tea, within the pop genre it’s definitely not bad. The premise, however, is worse, and the worst part is Natalia Portman. She looked good on the poster, but her performance wasn’t much. She only appears in the second half of the movie, where she plays the adult version of the main character, but that’s enough for me to feel repulsion against her, or rather her character. I was also puzzled by the fact that the young girl first played the main character and then the sister of the adult version of her original character. Vox Lux is full of moments I don’t understand, and I don’t know whether it’s sloppiness or some kind of art out of the scope of my understanding. It’s, however, enough for three stars.

After watching the film, I was surprised at how badly this final episode of modern X-Men is rated. It didn’t seem so bad to me, but I have some comments on the film. The thing that intrigued me the most was the fact that the film was entrusted to an inexperienced director. This mostly shows in the action sequences. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s the most furious action I’ve ever seen. The strange thing, however, is that this weird action looks incredibly epic in the end. I really don’t know how to put in the words, but I guess these are the best furious action scenes I’ve ever seen. The camera is not shaky, it performs such maneuvers that it boggles your mind, and even though I was quite dubious the entire time, it turned out that it’s the best feature of the whole flick. Together with Hans Zimmer’s music, which is once again epic and memorable. The plot, however, is worse, as it’s often the case with X-Men movies. Sophie Turner makes the same puppy eyes as she did in Game of Thrones, but this time it doesn’t work. During the entire movie, which was supposed to be about her, I was incredibly annoyed by her character. The best parts were as usual James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, thanks to whom I enjoyed the ending. This instalment deserves definitely better rating then 59 out of 100. It is controversial, true, but it is also entertaining, which is exactly what I wanted from it.

La Dolce Vita is not a film for everyone. It is a three-hour long portrait of the era and life of the high society. And it is of course quite good at that. It features certain scenes and musical themes that influenced the entire film industry, and have not grown old in decades. Some moments are a real pleasure to watch. But it’s still not enough for me to give it more than three stars. I understand that the message lies in the atmosphere of the times, but the filmmaking craft is not enough when the film lacks a soul and a story that would draw me in. Here I just watch people I don’t care about wasting their lives. They are of course unaware of it, and that’s why the film is called the way it is.

A series made by a Spanish director, which is similar to Richard Linklater’s trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight). With the difference of the premise of a single meeting being divided into eight episodes, running from 30 to 45 minutes. The problem of this series then lies in the length. It is called Foodie Love, so when the camera focuses on food, I’m literally drooling. However, the second half of the series shows the transmission between a budding relationship into asexual one, which I disliked so much I wanted to stop watching it. The last episode, however, brought a surprising conclusion to a story of two people and resolved some issues I had with it. In the end, I was happy that I kept watching. An original premise, a few scenes I would rather omit and a lot of beautiful food shots I couldn’t help appreciating. Especially the shots of Japanese ramen were gorgeous. And when the cook said that the quality of the ramen stew is affected even by the type of socks she wears to work on the given day, I was struck speechless.

It’s Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film and nothing changed in his storytelling. It’s true that he tuned his hubris down a bit so we don’t see any 40-minute scenes with zero content, as was the case with The Hateful Eight.  But it's still exactly the kind of movie you can expect from Tarantino. It‘s three hours long, with nothing happening for the first two hours, and the last 40 minutes are so full of suspense you will watch it with bated breath. Quentin strategically chose a new topic – Hollywood, but it’s actually just Pulp Fiction in a new coat. This movie seems likes Quentin Tarantino’s opus magnum. He portrays a period he obviously likes the most from Hollywood history – the Western era – and makes allusions to everything that comes to his mind. And he doesn’t care a bit if you like that era, have seen those movies or are their fan at all. He just does what he wants, and it fascinates me how much time and effort he had to invest in shooting scenes from various imaginary films, creating their posters and names. If nothing else, this makes Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a remarkable movie. Plus Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are a pair of cool guys who can’t let Tarantino’s fans down. It still, however, seems just like a film where a group of actors meet to have some fun together, most of all Leo and Brad. You feel like you went to grab a beer with them, took a peek into their lives, and in the last part of the film you got to see some traditional Tarantino action, which is just as wild and brutal as we’re used to. In short, nothing new under the sun.