Malarkey

Sort of like the Australian version of Screwed, which is nice because it combines different actors and their different senses of humor. And apart from all that, this movie has a number of original scenes, a good-looking girl and the great Timothy Spall, who’s trying to do everything he can to make sure we won’t simply remember his as the actor who was in Harry Potter. And so far, he’s been doing quite a good job of it.

It’s clear already from the name of the director of this movie that this won’t be just an ordinary movie. Martin Scorsese has the gift to make revolutionary movies and this one will be no exception. The only problem is that he’s not offering a simple, meaningful and logical plot. You see the Japanese are anything but easy to understand for us and you need a lot of time to study them. And that may be why this film is so interesting and that may have been the reason why Martin Scorsese decided to make a movie like this. And I totally understand the silent camera which has the image of what’s going on in the scene speak for it. You see, this film is so interesting that it’s actually incredibly hard to understand. You be the judge of that. The movie takes 161 minutes. For most of the movie, what you get is silence, destruction and two priests who are evidently somewhere where they shouldn’t be at all. The viewer can’t even by surprised by what they see. What I was surprised by, however, was Andrew Garfield’s acting performance, who is no longer the underage Spiderman who I took him to be. He finally got a chance to show himself. And along with the absolutely amazing cinematography, these are two reasons why this movie is worth watching. I was ecstatic. Silence may not be an easy film, but it’s full of incredible moments. And those sure are worth experiencing!

Secret Lives are definitely the best show I have ever seen come out of Slovakia. The topic literally has a lot to draw on, but the execution is sort of average and plain. As life itself often is. But that is not me saying that everything about this is bad, definitely not, it only took me a while to get used to the characters. I guess it’s the same in real life. So, I think that the greatest asset of this show is at the same time its main disadvantage. And that’s something that doesn’t happen to me with TV shows that often…

The first season was enough for me to form an idea about the people in this sitcom. I’ve grown really fond of Zooey Deschanel’s looks, but it was only in this show that I found out how crazy she can be. I don’t see it as a bad thing but at the same time I don’t think that it’s often very good for the show. And that’s despite the fact that the show is based on this craziness. Then she is surrounded by three boys, each of them is slightly different, they’re all nice, but not a single one of them really gets under your skin. And that’s probably the biggest issue. You somehow can’t form an opinion and you can’t get used to the characters. And that to me seems like quite a problem for a sitcom. And that’s not to talk about the fact that in the first season some episodes were absolutely great and others we completely lame. I will definitely give the next seasons a try, but I only follow the original idea of the show because Zooey Deschanel is in it, who sometimes gets on my nerves, but whom I admire at the same time. Why else.

The second part of Batman by Tim Burton is even better in terms of its atmosphere than its predecessor. The only thing missing is music by Prince, which managed to lift my mood a couple of times. But on the other hand, it offers Catwoman wearing a latex suit and a man-penguin and that’s not too bad, either.

Another American topic that is supposed to rid racist Americans of racist ideas. And finally, also a movie that makes at least some sense. A totally honest story told in a totally ordinary and realistic form. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga put in some absolutely minimalist acting performances, but it was clear from them that they truly live their characters. Jeff Nichols can do this really well in his films and they are trully a pleasure to watch. Or at least I like the way he tells stories. You see he tells it in an absolutely honest manner and 100% realistically. Without any embellishment, frills and prejudice. Americans would deserve to get an enema for their history and this movie fosters this idea in me. By the way, Joel Edgerton’s performance was genius. I haven’t seen an American actor blend with his character so hard. You see, Richard Loving was no easy character. Actually, I am surprised that he did not get an Oscar nomination.

Wow, the black guy Chris Rock once tells off the Oscar committee and one year later we have a series of Oscar-nominated movies, where Hidden Figures is definitely the best movie the year has to offer. You see it is a heartbreaking story of four clever girls who are working at NASA and at the same time have a problem – they are black. And since it’s the early 1960s and America is at the peak of a cold war against the Soviet Union about who will be the first one to send a man to space, what we have is a fairly racist subtext, which in this movie climaxes with separate toilets for whites and blacks. The story is nice, the execution as well, but those pro-American propagandist scenes where the head of NASA bangs on the sign “WC, Toilets for Coloreds” with twenty white colleagues watching were a bit shallow and I didn’t find them emotionally engaging. It might be because I am absolutely unable to grasp how far Americans managed to get with racism while still claiming it was OK. So here they are and now they have to try and safe face with movies that are supposed to be talked about for the rest of the year…

Well, this was an absolute and radical filmmaking fuckup… I like football, but it was only after I grew older that I understood that the best time to enjoy soccer was when you didn’t know how much it was influenced by politics and mainly money. You see, soccer is best when you yourself are playing it. Otherwise, it’s rather a sad caricature of a just and fair sport, which definitely doesn’t deserve a movie like this. Because it only fosters the idea that doccer officials would do anything to cleanse their black souls. The only person who was honest with soccer was Jules Rimet, who came up with the idea of the World Cup and who is portrayed in the movie by Gérard Depardieu. The second half of the story that takes place in the latter half of the 20th century and that lasts until today’s times, is a pure demagogy about how everybody does this for the love of the game and not for the money. Even though the officials in the movie say that soccer necesarrily needs to be joined with politics. Something doesn’t add up, right?

I would divide this film into two parts like it is for instance with The Full Metal Jacket. However, as opposed to The Full Metal Jacket, the first half involving training is quite boring, but fortunately the latter half is saved by an absolute precise depiction of war that I haven’t seen in a long time. You see, war is depicted in a pretty brutal manner in this film, which is something I had expected to see in a movie directed by Mel Gibson. At times I was even remembering the brutality and efficiency of SavingPrivate Ryan. The only difference being that Hacksaw Ridge was made about twenty years later. It still is one of the best war movies of the past few years and I am glad that Mel Gibson was in charge of this one, who after all his escapades proved that he still has it in him to get famous again, which he actually managed to achieve due to the fact that he was nominated for an Oscar. By the way, try to find out something about the main character, who is portrayed here by Andrew Garfield. To be honest, I didn’t know what to think about him. I think Desmond Doss was pretty unstable psychologically, which was confirmed in the first hour of the movie. After all, the movie showed this on his despotic father and also on the fact that the entire family was part of some Adventist Church of Jesus’ Latter Days and the family really built who they were on their pacificsm. In any case, I appreciate the effort to help people. You could see that even despite his mental issues, Desmond really meant well and it’s nice that Mel Gibson made such a movie about him. The story is truly epic.

In this one, Isabelle Huppert portrays a very arrogant woman for whom nothing is sacred and who is literally willing to walk over dead bodies to get what she wants. And since there is really nobody to root for in this film, I as the viewer was left at least to enjoy the psycho thriller atmosphere that the movie really had. But on top of that, the movie lasted for more than two hours, which definitely isn’t a plus in this case.