DaViD´82

An unjustly neglected film of Lumet film making that is rich in high-quality elements. The movie is centered on corruption. Not only the material one, when someone takes a thick envelope for doing someone a favor, but above all the pragmatic one, when the superiors know that if they put some efforts they would also reveal the favor, but why would they do that if it brings no results. And where there are results, there are no questions. And so the whole system is becoming corrupt step by step and even more because Nolte's character sees how eyes are being closed so he begins to misuse the already corrupt system. n top of that it provides an insight into how it goes with the daily routine on the streets, non-violently (and even more impressively) incorporated socio-racial overlap and well-written and played (especially Assante) characters (the author of the original also wrote Carlito's Way), when fortunately the protagonist is not typical a naive nice guy losing panic illusions, but a former cop who just wants to be clean and wants the system to be clean too. Although this has already been leveled up in the department of series, in terms of films (at least until the upcoming adaptation of Winslow's masterpiece "The Force") it is currently hard to find a better unadorned image of the daily routine of dirty cops than Lumet's duo Prince of the City / Q & A. In addition, Lumet captivatingly captures the genius loci of the western Harlem nightclubs and is also good at showing a tangled intertwining of interacting street prostitutes, patrolmen, squealer, drug dealers, middle management (police, mafia, and gangs) to lots of top circles. It does not seem excessive or unfinished, but complex and thoughtful. The only minor problem for many will be the slower pace of the movie, but you will get used to it. It´s the part of it, but not for everyone thought.

Captain Blake from MI5, the world's leading professor / scientist Mortimer and the villainous Colonel Olrik are famous adventure comic book series characters (well-known in the West) that is kind of a more advanced version of Tintin. After all, their stories have been published in Tintin since the 1950s. It's on the same level and in the same style, only the absent elements so typical of Tintin's escapades are absent. After all, Tintin is a young man. His assistant speaks like a heave drinker. There´s a dog that always saves everything and the detective duo takes care of humor. There is no such thing here. It's an orthodox, seriously conceived “sestakov" movie, which is the main reason why, despite the fact that it is an animated series, it is not as much for children as it might seem at first glance. This series from the authors of the series Tintin (it can´t be surprise you) deals with nine stories from the originals and four created especially for the series. In principle, they can be divided into three styles; Indiana Jones treasure hunts, detective cases and espionage-style original Bond films. And this animated series captures the spirit of the original perfectly. It´s fast-paced, (the original is from today ´s perspective too chatty and descriptive) action, tension, great bad and bad guys. No episode is utterly bad, but the quality has its highs and lows too. In any case, the best of them belong to the hall of fame of the adventure genre.

It's hard to say if I'm more upset by how it looks down to and goes against its own rules (teleportation, untouchable heroes), logic. It lapses into to unrealistically cheap solutions and it has absolutely lost any previous consistency of character behavior (this applies to everyone, but especially to Tyrion and Malíček) or if I'm excited about how high-quality straightforward second-rate generic high fantasy came out of it. I have a purely ambivalent relationship to this series. On the one hand, I despise it with regard to how it ruins everything what was dutifully built over six seasons (I prefer not to mention the original altogether, but one is already reconciled with it for couple of seasons), on the other hand, I enjoy it very much for its epicness, battles, fire dragons, action, catch-phrases and a roaring soundtrack like no other. Yes, it certainly seems like the whole script team had to act as extras for those crowded scenes instead of writing the script (and they did not return to their work until the final episode), but I would be lying if I didn't admit that I enjoyed it. Although for completely (but COMPLETELY) different reasons than before, but I liked it. That´s true.

The original is a classic heist genre about the preparation and subsequent execution of a theoretically clever plan, which, however, is processed entirely through testimonies of witnesses, newspaper articles and especially transcripts of records from those tapes from different newspaper agencies. However, it is adapted as a traditionally conceived movie, which initially tries to incorporate a kind of social reflection of "Big Brother" into the heist movie, but it doesn't fit there at all (on top of that, there´s that annoying and overused early seventies sound of "electronics", ouch). Perhaps, it would have not been so annoying if it had been for a reason in the story line. But there´s no reason for this sound at all, because Lumet ens this line after about an hour anyway. Leaving aside this failed ambition, we are left with the civilian genre movie about ambitious robbery which did now go exactly according the plan with great cast that is nice to watch especially in the second half.

Jim Thompson adapted by Donald Westlak. It's a secret dream of a fan of rough crime movies completely ruined by the boring Frears´ direction, who makes the footage to seem twice as long. Movies by Thompson have always been short, striking and uncompromising. In any case, converting less than two hundred pages into almost two hours of footage means, as a result, completely preventing the movie from progressing, that has this subversive Oedipus complex (which, despite the setting is not a heist) on paper. In addition, it could (and should) have been more visually stylized into noir, no one will talk me out of it. In any case, it is not bad, especially thanks to the dialogs, which are often taken word for word from the book and the fact that the acting is brilliant.

A worse feature episode of Narcos, made in a relaxed but inconsistently executed style of The Wolf of Wall Street or the Lord of War. So, it never finds its own path and so it crouches in the shadow of the above. What would help is a better-built storyline, some emotions and a better executed shift to more serious department at the end, but purely as 80s stylized relaxed biographical nonsense, it's not really bad at all and it's definitely fun. Take my word for it. Especially thanks to Cruise, who is a great fit to this comic conceived role of a passive macho dude. Partly because he doesn't try to stylize himself into the real Barry Seal and he just plays himself.

Still, exactly what you would expect. But from the end of the third episode and until then only in implied. The problem is not so much that at first each member plays on his own backyard, but rather that all those lines act as purely superfluous fourteenth and fifteenth episodes of their already finished thirteen-episode series and not as a regular follow-up of their life story. On top of that, the truth is that the quality of the individual segments exactly corresponds to the quality of the series of their main characters. So Murdock and Jessica are in terms of quality on a completely different level than Luke (at least that's where it´s based on Colter's charisma and Misty) or Danny Rand, who is clearly annoying. However, as soon as they get together, the Iron Fist suddenly works. It progresses in the style predetermined by the previous "episodes", namely good physical stunts inside the warehouses, a straightforwardly unnecessarily too talkative course of events, decent bad girls (although Sigourney has almost no room, so she has to get by only with a purely sinister frown) or= a not entirely consistent mix of "realistic "comic book approach with the excessive one. It's good and fun, no doubt about that, but inevitably it looks like a decent one-off special movie for fans rather than the regular outcome of several years of creating, towards which all previous series have headed, especially when it is game-changing only for one of the characters and the mystical supranational transnational super bad organization that has been built for centuries turns out to an inadvertently ridiculous equivalent of the villainous Kobra Kai division of Karate Kid in terms of its capabilities.

The first modern Hideo Goshi Yakuze movie. And at the same time the lamest one. Although it is uncompromising (and it is slightly excessive in terms of violence compared to how serious it otherwise is), the cast was based on who looks like a true Yakuza member that is typical for this kind of movie, set in the time when Ykuza begins to realize that corporate structure, contacts with politicians, lawyers or cease-fire with other clans will ensure an increase in profits and enhance the business better than they continuing to live in a box of street gangsters from illegal casinos and other hellholes. But at the same time, there are still old vets in the structures of individual clans, which don´t want the new order and would like to return the old way of doing things. It is the internal tension within the clans that is the most successful in Violent Streets, and one would even notice Gosha´s trace and his favorite topic. But the rest of it is average and perhaps it´s the only movie in his career that is rich in countless visually refined scenes to such extent that it´s almost ugly. On top of that, despite the short footage, it has a cumbersome and slow start, especially when Gosha´s heroes usually let their action to do the speaking, but in this case the characters to all the talking explaining their motivation and the past through monologues such as "Do you remember how less than a decade ago you loved the girl who left you and married boss, because whom you sacrificed yourself and went to jail. Do you still remember, right? Have you forgotten?" One would go mad.

In the first half it is excessively stylized with randomly used "Best of 80´s soundtrack", while the second half is often without any music and is raw to the bone in a style of Greengrass´ Bourne (and this approach suits the movie much better). On top of that, the screenwriter pretends that it is a serious espionage genre movie almost like Carry with somehow tangled double identities. However, he is not very good at it and it is clear from the very beginning what´s going on and who is the mysterious one who is playing everyone. A rather trivial story is told in an unnecessarily complicated manner. But at least it's not a stupid story. What it relies on is, as expected, mainly all an excellent choreography that results in brilliant physical and stunned action (fortunately it´s not non-stop, but reasonably dosed) with the impressively cool Charlize. You can't deny the movie has its own face, it's definitely not just the proclaimed "Jane Wick". Only that face should have had too much makeup throughout the footage as at the beginning or should have been completely without it as at the end.

Prejudice can kill, suspicion can destroy... Although you are not watching "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", however, Dante refers to this cult episode of the Twilight Zone in a way that one wonders if it's not its regular comedic family remake. However, Dante refers to many other horror and sci-fi movies throughout the whole movie. After all, it not only refers to that. And Goldsmith, with the most playful soundtrack of his career, is really good at helping him to achieve that. Hanks relies on physical comedy. The movie is imaginative, the cast is apt, it has spirit of 80s, slightly excessive footage and too much room for an annoying, fat sidekick.