DaViD´82

Crazier version of Man on Fire, in other words another movie made by a “stuntman/director" where it is going without saying that shaky camera and frantic editing are a course of the action genre. From the same department as The Raid and Wick movies. Not in terms of the style of action, the type of movie or the uncompromising rawness, but because when watching action scenes you will inevitably delighted to say several time “I've never seen anything like this before, but I have always wanted to". You may not say it as often (basically twice; in a one-shot eleven-minute action hell while watching slums and rogues being beaten) as when watching the second Raid movie or John Wick sequel, but still more often than when watching most of the action movies from the last decades (exceptionalmovie ). On top of that, frequent action is so diverse that you won’t become bored of it. Straightforwardness does justice to this movie, the characters are sketched but functional, emotions work well, it simply does the job. The outcome is a genre move that knows what it wants to be and to who is the viewer. The only minor imperfection is a little bit too much sad, gloomy self-questioning, a too yellow toning and a rather open ending.

The concept of “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain", when the junkie Diego, a coach who is being made fun of, goes right into the heart of the Sinaloa drug cartel to train a team that was formed in the new millennium, was soon driven to the top by drug money, and then gradually fell to the current state of a dysfunctional team on the verge of competing for a place in the second league. It's a pure publicity stunt from the Dorados de Sinaloa team management. And it not only works, but more surprisingly, against all logic, it also works from a sports point of view. So, the concept is from the realm of dreams. The problem is its execution. From a running time of less than four it is not at all clear what the goal was. Whether it was to get a behind-the-scenes look at the club or at Diego. But neither works. It is definitely not the equivalent of the view into a football club à la Sunderland, All or Nothing, Inside Borussia Dortmund, etc. At the same time, however, it is not about Diego, who, apart from the first episode, does not let the crew get too close. Although he is on the screen all the time, it is only during training sessions (where he is not acting as a coach), pre-match meetings (where he does not discuss any tactics) and matches (where he grossly scolds referees). Nothing in between. He serves as a good luck charm who just says a few words about passion and hunger for winning, and all the hard work is done by his assistant. He is not asked any questions, the camera just runs, which he is well aware of, so he entertains everyone, flirts and swears. Which is enough for the series to be enjoyable to watch, because Diego is just Diego and he is simply fascinating, but it's not enough for anything else. In the end, it whole thing holds together because Diego is entertaining and thanks to the unlikely coincidence that the team under his “leadership" turned itself around and started writing a football fairy tale. At the end of the day, the mariachi theme song is by far the best part.

With regard to the Jeckyll and Hyde structure, the name “Diego / Maradona" would fit better. In the seven-year period of Naples, which made Diego someone, a legend, God and the devil, Kapadia cleverly depicts the fate of attributes of ancient tragedy. There is everything; revolt, reaching the summit and going far beyond it, the Fall of Icarus, destructive love (both personal and love of crowds) and pure hatred (both personal and hatred of crowds), the devil's whispering through Camorra, (un) wishing surroundings, social, sports and political overlaps, paternal problem and everything centred around the distracted mind of an distinctive genius. It doesn't matter if you are interested in football or not. It doesn't matter if you admire or despise Diego, if you consider him a pitiable druggy, cheater and liar or the best football player of all time, a football toyer and a fighter with a passion in his heart. It works mainly on the universal human level of the “tragic fate of the genius". And if you are not indifferent to football, then it applies to you even more. It is admirable how Kapadi managed to fit countless hundreds of hours of material into two hours of footage, maintain a clear structure, storyline, do without talking heads, step up the pace and, last but not least, amaze with the restored shots. And I'm not even talking how Pint's music contribute to the resulting emotions. Yes, we complain about (this applies to Senn too) a certain simplistic straightforwardness in depicting events that largely completely ignore other perspectives (gentleman Robson could tell), but ... But that doesn’t really matter (the same applies to already mentioned Senn) not even a little bit, not at all.

Neo-noir Woody Allen on cocaine laced with synthetics. Loud-mouthed, too tense, hypnotic, mumbling, repulsive, soiled, slimy and truly (I really mean truly) intense. It cannot be recommended anyone. Compared to Uncut Gems, Good Time would be a viewer-friendly film. This time, the Safdis provoke on purpose. You will either hate or admire them from the bottom of your heart, but you will hardly say “hmm, a nice average movie that I will not remember tomorrow “. You will remember. It is only a question of whether you will spit in disgust or nod appreciatively while recalling it.

As is the source work, so is the adaptation to a significant extent, though for completely different reasons, since how can you possibly adapt almost 140 pages of illustrations in eight episodes, right? The book Loop is based on illustrations (borrow it, google it, it's worth it), where the genius loci is the crucial aspect of every single painting. Each is brimming with nostalgia for the 1980s, a children's expedition for adventure, alternative “retro-future" history, cold and damp autumn and chilling, snowy distances. Unfortunately, the book Loop has a shortcoming in the form of the redundant “so-called storyline", i.e. padding. In the book, images paradoxically do not serve as illustrations, because the text itself is an illustration. How was all of this dealt with in a drama series? Surprisingly well. The atmosphere and design of Stålenhag's paintings are portrayed phenomenally (and strongly supported by Glass's music). It is undeniable that the stories are not in the spotlight, but despite that, they play a significant role, unlike in the book, where they are in the background. Whereas in the book the basic outline of the good storyline was expressed in one or two sentences if only someone was able to grasp it and elaborate it properly, that's exactly what Halpern / Amazon did really well. Not memorable, often lengthy, even for a series that is based on an intimate environment and a deliberately slow pace. The storyline is often not enough to fill up the almost one-hour running time, but it is sufficiently well done so that it does not diminish the quality or induce boredom. At first glance, this may give the impression of a cross between Stranger Things (poetics, children, retro, adventures) and Black Mirror (episodes, overlap, themes), but this is not the case. Tales from the Loop is original. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not, but in any case it has (thanks to the atmosphere and audiovisual aspect) all of the prerequisites to become a sci-fi cult classic and a work that will discussed a lot. And it deserves that, despite it's shortcomings. | S1: 4/5 |

He wanted to have a festival, but influencers came. It's definitely fascinating, but only from the Schadenfreude perspective of “ha ha, they got what they deserved". Events events are not coherently documented, uncomfortable and sensitive questions are not asked, the key people of the “inner circle" are ignored, except for McFarland, and at the end there are more questions than at the beginning. It has already been overplayed, with several cases of fraud and embezzlement and there is nothing sophisticated or imaginative about them. It's just the idle talk and promises of a charismatic imposter supported by good marketing. Nothing more and nothing less. It worked for a short time and the people affected stared and stared until they could stare no more. The case involving Elizabeth Holmes is infinitely more interesting.

An overview of a single genre everything that revolves around it. It looks like an nearly two-hour trailer for a ten-episode series. And the series would have been excellent, because every single topic (and there are many of them) that is broached is stimulating and clearly calls for further elaboration. But that never happens. Something completely different comes up every ten minutes. And the previous one is left forever without anything other than unspoken general information (it can digress in the middle of the topic and they start talking about the impact of kung fu movies on breakdancing and parkour culture, but that never takes more than a minute, so what’s the point?). And damn, that's not enough. It's a good idea, but the form suffers. The talking head is replaced by a shot from the movie, followed by a graphic divider, and the person who speaks appears for just one second and then you find out what was being discussed. It all takes about twenty seconds and then the same song is played over and over again. And thanks to this, it is fast paced, it has energy and you make a mental note of "wow, I need to get this movie and yay, this is interesting, I have to find out more about it". But that's the problem, it just teases without going anywhere. It is not even clear who the target audience is. Definitely not fans of the genre. They know everything already and this is too general, too shallow. And it's definitely not for viewers who are not familiar with the subject, because it's so brief with no details at all about specific aspects aimed at fans, as something completely different is happening before the can grasp the topic that came before.

Taking into account the year in which the book was published, it is clear that this movie does not (and was not intended to) represent a new approach to the fantasy genre. No, this is (and should be) a black-and-white fairy tale, a naïve fantasy about a bunch of kids. Yes, it's largely a chivalric variation on Narnia (not the film, but the series from Studio Rosa) without the traditional fantasy creatures and talking fauna. And no, there's nothing wrong with that. If classics like Willow were your cup of tea back then, then this one is cut from the same cloth. In less than five hours, it never loses pace (the price for this is the logic of occurrence and transfer of characters in the second half and the final episode, which gives the impression as being one episode spliced together from two), the children are generally not annoying, the main character is absolutely a nice guy, the creators were not afraid to use “cheap" but breathtaking settings in New Zealand as exteriors and Czech castles as interiors and... And in general, if you want (except for one nice twist) a straightforward, unpretentious narrative adventure fairy tale for the whole family for one afternoon, then there is no need to look anywhere else. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a new Game of Thrones or The Witcher, then keep looking. | S1: 4/5 |

Hello all you cool cats and kittens. In recent years, true-crime documentary TV series have been the epitome of what's “unthinkable". And that's doubly true in this case. The main characters are eccentric, egomaniacal, hypocritical rednecks engaged in a dispute, who above all love attention, money, mullets (“business in the front, party in the back"), horrible hackneyed  country songs, guns and big cats. But it could (and should) have one or two episodes shorter. It loses pace in some places. However, there are many topics covered in the series: breeding big cats in captivity and their conditions, the financial business resulting from it, the guy who was the inspiration for Tony Montana (in which other show would such a character be the least interesting?), femininity/masculinity, building a commune/cult with everything that goes with it, an inheritance worth millions, a presidential candidacy, tons of meth and, above all, the gradually escalating backstabbing among everyone involved, up to point of murder, etc. So, it will keep you entertained at all times. Which you will know for sure from the fact that you will constantly shake your head every time you see an “unthinkable" or “it can’t be possible" moment, and your neck will hurt like hell. But maybe it would be appropriate to wait another year or two, because even “after the end" there is and will still be a lot of interesting things going on in those cases.

If you expect a behind-the-scenes look into a famous college football team, an insight into how future stars are able to balance their studies and preparation for a professional contract, the specifics of “transfers" between universities, the relationship between mainstream students and the football elite, tensions between freshmen and seniors who have the last chance to prove themselves on the team, and the rivalry between individual schools... Exactly nothing like any of that is addressed here (except for a few flashes). It is purely a sequence of games during the college football season; it's well presented and fast paced, and it's not without anything interesting, but it's only about the sports aspect of game preparation, the game itself and what happens after the game, again and again.  The few attempts to delve into the personal level are too staged to provide any real information. In other words, what is most interesting compared to the NFL's All or Nothing series, i.e. the college dimension, is not used enough. You will certainly know that they are immature young people only by how they try to be natty and constantly stare at their mobile phones. PS: The defensive coach is the largest conceivable collection of all the “American football coach" clichés; such a character would not have been possible in a non-documentary work, because it would not have looked real, not even for a second.