Goldbeater

The apocalyptic premise of the planet being engulfed by extreme acid rain (practically equivalent to highly concentrated acid raining down from the heavens) is a loaded idea, and makes for a decidedly very cheerless and physically unpleasant film. It's a shame they didn't come up with anything much cleverer to go with it than the characters' constant chaotic flight from recurring danger. Once it gets going, Acid is a fairly intense thriller and you certainly won't be bored with it. But it also suffers from the common affliction of disaster movies where characters in crisis situations either behave strangely, completely stupidly, or deal with things that are utterly irrelevant at the time, which is quite annoying at some points in the story.

A Canadian slasher flick about teenagers who decide to spend the night in a mall after closing time, only to be chased by dysfunctional night watchmen. Thematically, it's nothing new under the sun, giving a nod to classics from the 1980s like Chopping Mall, but Wake Up is very dynamically shot, and the RKSS creative collective behind retro throw-back flicks like Turbo Kid and Summer of '84 are able to stylize the action in neon colours and ride the wave of genre clichés without being annoying. It's simple and not revelatory by any means, but importantly, it's also entertaining and quite brutal.

It's not my cup of tea. I can appreciate the truly admirable animation and imaginative world-building, but I'd be lying if I said it satisfied me as a viewer. The one-dimensional, soft-spoken protagonist is a dull and uninteresting link between Hayao Miyazaki's many fantastic dream sequences. Emotionally, it completely passed me by and, especially in the last third, I found it quite annoying. Not a fan, sorry.

Joe Lynch adapts H.P. Lovecraft's short story “The Thing on the Doorstep” very loosely, paying homage to the work of Stuart Gordon, whose film adaptations of the Providence stories made that weirdo famous. You can expect a classic retrospective narrative of the protagonist locked up in a mental institution, a bit of eroticism, a few spontaneous outbursts of violence and a good dose of cute overacting and black humour. However, you won’t see the kind of striking special effects we would expect from a Lovecraft adaptation. Here, they try to make up for the visual niceties by playing with the camera and the editing, but it don't look very impressive in that low-budget guise. In its low-budget conception and visuals, it almost evokes direct-to-video films of the 90s, so if I were to compare Suitable Flesh specifically to Stuart Gordon's work, it would belong more to the Castle Freak era than Re-Animator or From Beyond, which is not necessarily a criticism, more of a clarification. For fans of the genre, it might be an interesting throw-back, but for anyone else I'd probably be reluctant to recommend it because of the specificity of the concept. In any case, Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton are a very dynamic duo here, and they don't even share that much screen time together.

An indie horror film about a werewolf who decides to relieve the world of his existence, but before doing so, he plans to settle scores with a few of his neighbors in a New York neighborhood and confront a local real estate mogul using unfair practices. It's actually a pretty sweet and naive indie drama that hides its very low budget as much as it can, but the cheapness comes through a lot. Which, especially in the last third, makes for some (probably unintentionally) funny scenes.

Great technical level. The choice of time and setting and the associated production design, the use of miniature buildings and the effects that embed live characters in them is great. Even the prosthetic make-up on Ladislav Hampl's face looks pretty solid. But the story, its associated themes and characters work less well and at times seem as heavy-handed as the dumb English title We Have Never Been Modern. I have a problem with several of the moral aspects of the film, which are either presented as entirely unproblematic or, for good measure, not mentioned at all. Overall, however, this is still one of the more thematically interesting works of Czech cinema this year, though in my opinion somewhat along the lines of the saying “in the land of the the blind, the one-eyed is king”. [KVIFF 2022]

Even though intimate stories about the reconnection between an estranged parent and offspring are a feature in practically every edition of the festival, one I sometimes tire of with its thematic weariness, Second Chance successfully managed to break out of this lethargy and totally suited me. It almost teeters on the edge of melodrama, almost. But it never falls over that edge. The chemistry of characters of the father and daughter played by a real-life father-daughter duo works very well. There's nothing much to fault about it. A nice little film. [KVIFF 2023]

From the outside, The Taste of Things is practically the pinnacle of a genre that could be called simply “gastro-porn”. At its core, however, it is also a film that touches on so many interesting and thoughtful themes that all the flavours it evokes during the screening will stay with you for some time to come. A sensitively made drama with masterful performances and I wouldn't be surprised if Benoît Magimel wins the César for the third year in a row. [KVIFF 2023]

Blaga's Lessons confirms that Stephan Komandarev is a master at the portraying social conditions in Bulgaria. His films are not only eloquent and thoughtful, but also entertaining, which is not always easy to balance. For the first time in a long time, I can understand the award for the winning film of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. [KVIFF 2023]

Although the initial festival reviews overhyped Past Lives and the film does have a few deaf spots, it is a very well-written relationship drama that feels fresh and authentic. This is also due to the use of exteriors – it's been a long time since we've had a film that uses the scenery and landmarks of New York so well in its sober and romantic overtones. Is it that hard? [KVIFF 2023]