Isherwood

A riveting thrill ride that benefits from two things in particular: 1) Konchalovsky’s conception of the limited space of the train, where the tension is heightened by the cuts to the control center, which creates more obstacles and problems, 2) the excellently written and acted characters of the prisoners and guards, for whom it is quite an issue to feel any sympathy, given their nature. The result is an uncompromising flick whose appeal, even after more than twenty years, is mainly due to the irresistible boyish feeling of hard adventure, as is the case for the films made by Frankenheimer or Carpenter. In fact, the traditional synth music references the latter. A classic.

No, this film isn't really about soccer (the original depiction of the games themselves is a major bonus!) so much as it’s about one brilliant talented man who had to come to a personal epiphany. Michael Sheen is absolutely perfect as Brian Clough. He’s uncompromising and has undeniable charisma, but he is also selfish and ruthless, which are all qualities this English coaching legend manages with consummate ease. He’s the one who mainly passes the ball of this conceptually not-so-traditional biography to the final scoring position, with the goal being audience sympathy. I don't deny that the ending is a foul worthy of at least a yellow card, but why not turn a blind eye sometimes? 4 ½.

Judd Apatow proves why he is one of the revered filmmaker demi-gods despite the overly long runtime (for the genre). This is because of his incredible sense of creating parallels between the viewers’ own lives, wherein finding "one’s own thing" is not all that much of a problem. Despite the flurry of vulgarities and low humor, it works. This is especially thanks to Rogen's sympathetically civil charisma of a sweaty redneck and Heigl's ability to make even the most emotional moments believable. The ending is beautiful.

A masterful game with genre tropes that manages to thrill, frighten, and entertain, often all within a single scene. After Spider-Man 3, Raimi makes it clear that he hasn't lost his judgment and knows how to entertain himself and the audience. Anyone who gives it less than three stars simply hasn't understood that Raimi made a fool of them. 4 ½.

The trite truths of life provided in the most sympathetic packaging. I have never been so genuinely entertained and moved at the same time. If you like to take to the roads behind the wheel, you’ll definitely enjoy this.

It’s an absolutely seamless action ride, in which the only person who will be able to handle the phantasmagoric plot is the person who keeps hoping that Luc Besson will ever get his act together after an unknown stroke. The contact fights are clear to see, imaginative, and funny, with countless parkour stunts. If the director knew how to edit (specifically, how to work better with gradation and smarter location changes), I wouldn't hesitate to jump up a balcony higher.

I see it as a patchwork of scenes, with a very fluctuating level of wit, rather than as an whole film. Curtis defines himself in the screenwriter column, but as a director with scissors in hand, he cruelly overreached. He doesn't even have time to introduce, let alone develop, this parade of exhibition exotics, and if it weren't for the cast, who carry the film mainly with their eccentricity and charisma, this would have been a failure on all fronts. If they make it into a three-hour S.E. Cut or a straight six-part series for TV, I’ll give it full stars. They way it is now, it’s a desperately boring two hours.

If you can already guess what’s going to happen from the trailer, something is wrong. State of Play is undoubtedly an excellent thriller. This is especially true for those of us who like conspiracy theories and enjoy unraveling them together with the film's characters. Unfortunately, the same doesn’t apply to those viewers who have already watched many films like this. Kevin MacDonald tells the story cleverly and very ingeniously lays out the clues, and it's great fun to watch the hard-working actors looking for individual crumbs out of the mysterious forest. Yet, somehow, the entire plot is put together without any stronger vigor or a stronger authorial decal. As a TV craftsman for HBO, he would score points with this film, but in an A-movie thriller, he loses out because of the clichés. I’ll give the film a net 70%, but I just can't round it up to four stars.

An evil Asian, a tough black guy, a black guy spewing catchphrases, a Bond-esque villain, his fuckable assistant, a charismatic general, and ninety-four other reasons, with one added on top, not to like contemporary Hollywood. This film is the perfect storehouse of ammunition and weaponry for its opponents. Looking around, I fully understand why so many spectators were banging their heads against the seats in front of them. But... to expect anything witty from Sommers is a mockery of one’s own common sense, and I succumbed to the film from the first seconds. When, after half an hour, the action that another director would have saved for the ending - and I felt happy when 1 (in words: one) Eiffel Tower is saved and half of it is demolished (mathematically: ½) of Prague - I wondered if there was such a thing as creative judgment and common sense. And yet it was still not over. Star Wars! The craziest, most unbelievable, and most entertaining high-budget dementia that contemporary cinema has to offer. My head hurts, it really does.

If you can't sleep at night, you think to yourself that you'll appreciate a German nickel-and-dime thriller playing on TV around midnight. The beginning is about a mysterious hotel where people are dying suspiciously, and that seems like a solid old-world homage to the horror genre. But no sooner does the main character take to the hot Moroccan streets on his own as a detective than one "WTF?!" moment after another starts jumping out at you from the screen, with the characters acting like complete idiots who have had their logic and common sense beaten out of them. And that’s not even mentioning their opponents. And the ending with the speech and the interests of a classic Bond villain... ouch!