POMO

A conversational film in a moving car that quite successfully holds you in anticipation of how it will turn out. A cop, a witness and a random passenger who doesn’t inspire much confidence. However, the first twist, which finally comes after 90% of the runtime, is predictable and the second twist, which concludes the film with a would-be shocking point, is the biggest genre cliché. Furthermore, it is bolted onto the preceding plot in a superficial and nonsensical way. The admiration for Tarantino is likably acknowledged, and not only in the font of the closing credits from Pulp Fiction.

Fire of Love is poetic, philosophical and even a bit romantic. The director pulled the maximum out of the shared life story of a pair of volcanologists that ended decades ago, while also contributing a nice lyrical framing to that story. She finds both fatefulness and the couple’s life mission in their unusual and hazardous occupation, as well as in the unbreakable bond of their relationship. Theirs was a happy and fulfilling life journey. The shots of the couple from TV interviews are humorous, whereas those from the field while filming erupting volcanoes are interesting. And the shots in which they are standing mere metres from flowing lava are breathtaking. “As in love, there are mysteries. You fall hard for what you know. Harder, for what you don’t.” Fire of Love is a film that will stay with you.

SPOILERS! Such potential. And such a mediocre film. Instead of an intelligent sociological study of the conflict between social classes, The Menu turned out to be a bittersweet tale about an angry chef who punishes some for once criticizing his cooking and others for something else completely unrelated. And this tale is told in an unimaginative and, in places, even silly way (the theatrical punishment of the angel investor, without whom the chef wouldn’t even have had a restaurant). The main villain is worthy of zero respect. Even the character of the restaurant critic is not construed as a metaphor for the film reviewers who would like to rip this film. The main character (Anya Taylor-Joy) is the only one who makes sense with her perception of the situation and her reactions to it. She also gives the plot concept the only imaginative creative impetus by revealing her identity. A weak three stars.

An educational video for high-school history and biology students, and perhaps for those studying Italian. The historical stage of the Nazis’ campaign from Kiev to Stalingrad, told among the German leaders and social workers with a weakness for uniforms. Oral, missionary, lesbian S&M. There is a suspicious lack of the last of these in the Italian cut. I want the longer French version. And a CD soundtrack with an exhaustive booklet.

I haven’t read the novel, so I’m reviewing this strictly as a war movie. In technical terms, it’s fine. There is nothing to criticise when it comes to the sets, costumes, camerawork or the depiction of the battle and negotiation scenes. However, the detailed portrayal of the characters and, mainly, the dialogue come up short, feeling flat and failing to emotionally engage the viewer. The film lacks a strong screenwriting focus on the personal stories of the protagonist and several other characters.

After an hour of making the viewer cringe, Hellhole somehow manages to justify its own predictability, but there is no excuse for the bits of silliness in the film (the priest with the camera is shocked by the flaming cross, the loaded pistol sitting on the table...). Nor does the interesting climax make up for the embarrassing impression that the film makes in the run up to it. But Hellhole deserves a third star for that climax, because the filmmakers took it farther than a major studio horror movie would have dared (on the other hand, the first hour would have been better thought out). And the sets are okay.

Ben Steiner trips on shrooms and has a distorted idea of what viewers want. The fact that all of the characters (with the exception of the insignificant role of the blonde mistress) are unlikable and unreadable wouldn’t matter so much if they fit into the concept of the plot. But all of the gradual revealing of the mystery surrounding the mother and the black secretion is just bizarre and irrelevant, not scary and shocking. Utter bullshit.

She-Joker. Meticulously crafted in psychological terms, Pearl is an interesting and polished profile of an unstable asocial that crosses the same boundaries that the award-winning hit with Joaquin Phoenix did. The setting with a hillbilly family in a house in rural Texas is even more appealing to me. In fact, Ti West suggests here how idyllic the origins of other famous Texas families could have looked... The kitschy fairy-tale-like retro-stylization contrasts with the dark tones of the soundtrack, indicating the presence of a hidden evil and gradually paving the way for the outburst of that evil. The main character delights fans of the genre not only with a pitchfork and axe in hand, but also with a long one-shot confession about her own shattered mental state. Mia Goth is great. And the audiovisual flashes of Kubrick and Hitchcock... Pearl is a formalistic delight for those who are interested.

It’s a fine thing that Disney+ is debunking the myth of family VoD and premiering interesting horror movies. But Barbarian is overhyped. Screenwriter and director Zach Cregger enjoys playing with form and he respectably builds up the suspense associated with the unknown in the first third of the film. But the later uncovering of the mystery reveals the creative weakness of merely borrowing key elements from the groundbreaking works of the genre and slides into unintentional self-parody in the climax, while thinking it’s cool. This should have been made by an inventive butcher, ideally with European roots, who wasn’t afraid to exploit the potential of the terrifying content of the videotapes.

In terms of its technical execution, Old People offers a decent level of craftsmanship. The beginning, which culminates with the scene in which the main character figures out what's going on, is a great horror treat. But the bizarre idea of angry, murderous pensioners on which the whole film is based comes across as silly. The filmmakers failed to elevate the subject to the level of social allegory and remained with the mental optics of a pure zombie horror flick, which made Old People embarrassing to the point of being ridiculous.