NinadeL

The Czech Republic needed this sort of film. Thanks to the sympathetic young actresses, the film broke through in places where less attractive faces would have caused a problem. It makes me happy that after only two years, each of them has already shown how independent they are.

After I had my fill of both versions of Queer as Folk, I was ready for something else. And lo and behold, both series were revolutionary, but they didn't make as big of a wave. If you happen to be interested in the next queer TV drama, the first thing you find is something like this... (Yes, I know The L Word very well ;)) Dante's Cove is not a bad series, but it's also a mix of too many genres at once for me. The pilot starts off as a great costume magic-gay show, but soon it all shifts to the present day, and while there are still plenty of ties to the past with a good dose of mystery (Tracy Scoggins and William Gregory Lee are solidly devilish on both levels)... it then turns into a soap opera, which is a real shame. Still, it’s better than nothing. ;) You wouldn't get that much of a blowjob welcome anywhere else.

This show is ideal for Czech kids if they watch it in two languages. In this way, young preschoolers and pre-kindergarten children have the opportunity to pick up the basics of a second language as quickly as their mother tongue. Nothing more, nothing less. Localization is not to be underestimated.

Für alle Fälle or 9 years in Luisa's hospital, and several nurses who all happen to be named Stephanie... We also have head nurse Klara, nurse Elke, and doctors Stein and Meier-Liszt. And a whole series of cases ranging from Rosamund Pilcher to Max Reinhardt.

If I ignore the violent elements of the inorganically-inserted retro in the form of the pair of non-actors Menzel and Kresadlová (indeed, next to Věra, Jiří also acts almost perfectly) and focus on the contemporary realistic relationship drama based on the great Slovak guests Luknár and Fialová, then I am delighted. I didn't expect that the perfectly coordinated Hřebejk team and the same faces could make something like this. The etudes of Macháček and Trojan naturally have their limits but in the context of the Roman acquaintances it all fits together beautifully and matures as the years go by. Ana and Zuzana's meeting over menthol was magnificent.

This film focuses on the 1980s. Maybe that's a good thing because if this writing team wanted to comment on other decades of Czech history in their own way, I probably wouldn't be able to take it anymore. I would have been able to give Pupendoa better score if the scene with the drawn fur coat remained in the movie theater version.

The first pillar of a slightly different take on the Good Old Times by Hřebejk.

This series, which was fatefully affected by the writers' strike, is a true combination of Tim Burton and Ed Wood. Essentially, it amounts to a series of stand-alone detective stories refreshed with an original "method." The presence of the narrator is nice, as is the gradual mapping of the main characters' pasts.

Risking the sinking of the square in Pilsen for the final scene seems wasteful to me both then and now. Still, I find Soukup's narrative more meaningful than Michal David's recollections of where he was musically inspired. Doing the same thing in a Czech version ten years after Saturday Night Fever and four years after Staying Alive is a bit backward. Mariana Slováková is, unfortunately, also as much of a loser as Andy Kraus is tragic.

The only thing missing for me to have complete satisfaction is a joint Kánská/Cížkovská sexy scene on the floating bed. It’s the ideal film from the unrepeatable post-revolutionary collection The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday - Brooklyn Story and Playgirls 1 and 2. It's an open-air museum.