JFL

This admittedly pulpy attempt to synthesise Start Wars and Mad Max into an epic adventure could have resulted in an outstanding film if the screenplay and direction had been just a bit better. However, it didn’t result in ahopeless cock-up from the ranks of Italian and Filipino imitators of those pop-culture milestones. It is simply a solid genre film that is rightfully half-forgotten, yet passionately exalted by its fans. Ivan Reitman, who is inadequately associated only with his mainstream comedies, follows up his previous production work in the area of self-indulgent adoration of limp heroic stories. As with Heavy Metal, he consciously lent his auspices to a dime-store sci-fi adventure that by no means denies its inspirations and has excellent art direction, as well as enough of its own ideas to warm the hearts of more than a few fans of postapocalyptic films. Though it is clear that the relevant professionals put more work into the art direction, costumes and scenography than the script and direction could put to use in individual scenes, particular instances on this post-apocalyptic planet are impressive with their opulent and straightforward pulpiness, as will as with the impression of an elaborate world that could offer countless other escapades.

Deep Murder is a detective film in the best tradition of Agatha Christie, only set in the world of mainstream porn (though not connected with porn), or what classic porn characters dream about when they’re not sleeping with someone. The concept, as if derived from an SNL or Key and Peele sketch and extended to feature length, surprisingly manages to work throughout the duration of the film thanks to the fact that the creators delve into the individual absurd aspects of the bizarre logic of pornography clichés. From boudoir lighting through the illogical spatial layouts of the house to perfectly nuanced acting, Deep Murder shows not only a thorough familiarity with the aesthetics of mainstream American porn, but also the ability to push it just that tiny, necessary bitto the level of perfect caricature. Though the humour found here is a blend of superficial hollowness, Brechtian absurdism and fierce caricature brought to the level of retarded nonsense and definitely does not suit everyone, Deep Murder is set to become a cult film in the true and original sense of the journey of a glorified handful of true believers.

Months of boredom with nudists on the Moon, or how to come to grips with a plan to shoot a nudist sci-fi movie when you don't have money and you need to make a feature-length film. Like Herschell Gordon Lewis or Russ Meyer, director Doris Wishman is regarded as a pioneer in her category but, as in the case of Lewis and Meyer (and a number of other nameless filmmakers), that does not make her a good filmmaker or her films anything other than bumpy sections on a long road of demolishing taboos before other, more capable filmmakers could build on the milestones that they achieved.

Ad Astra is a film that is easy to shoot down or mock with a withering catch-phrase, but which nevertheless hypnotically draws in the viewer and long afterwards smoulders in one’s mind. It is impossible to avoid the impression that something is simultaneously missing and excessive, whether monologues, action scenes or pulpy elements thatturn contemplative absorption into amused mockery. Like a cosmic Heart of Darkness, Ad Astra gives the impression of being abridged, as if a full range of other stops on the road to the destination have been bypassed. Glimmers of the film’s world give the sense of a well-thought-out future and colonisation of the solar system. Director James Gray's film comes across asa several-hour miniseries that has been edited down and promises the possibility of not only seeing more of everything but, primarily, getting everything in a more sophisticated, dramaturgically refined and, above all, more slowly flowing form. I very much would have liked Ad Astra’s runtime to be twice or even three times as long, with proportionately more stops in space and some motifs more thoroughly developed. In its actual form, it is a sort of Reader’s Digest, the fragments of which do not conceal the masterful filmmaking and give a sense of an epic vision.

When two people do the same thing, the results of their efforts will differ depending on their respective levels of talent and life experience. Thus, while Ready or Not would like to be another Get Out, as the promotional materials emphatically make clear, it can never have that film’s sting. The grievances of one ethnic group and the phantasmagorical delusions of the privileged social class are not revealed here. Rather, only a group of well-to-do people make fun of rich people within the limits of the genre. Thanks to that, Ready or Not works great as arelief valve for the frustrated workers of our capitalist reality, but it characteristically does not open up its subject in any way or contain any overlap into everyday reality. Above all, however, it does not open anyone’s eyes. It’s just an amusing episodic film in which, instead of the monstrosity in the human heart or the gears of the predatory system, we can only see our own need to simply find festive relief in a properly explicit lynching.

Stéphane Drouot's short brings civilian ordinariness into space and is appealing primarily as a formal exercise in staging and camera work. While the idea that even in the era of humanity’s expansion into space there will still be social chasms and enclaves, when ordinary people will futilely dream of the luxury seen in lifestyle consumer magazines, remains topical, it is the image of the world in Star Suburb that is captivating. Stylistically, the film is reminiscent of contemporary French creative works giving rise to cinema du look, such as the early shorts by the duo Caro-Jeunet and Besson’s initial projects.

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is a recombinant and, at its core, generic human story that plays out in world of Pokémon. Please more scenes with Pikachu and Psyduck next time.

Starfish is by no means flawless, but with its originality and debutant overflow of ideas, it is a likable work conceived as an audiovisual parallel to the mixtape format. With its roots among the ranks of genre films creating surreal metaphors of the minds of their characters – such as Donnie Darko and Pi – it is, like the aforementioned classics, both deranged and intimate, thanks to which it is emotionally absorbing and fascinating for viewers.

From gun-fu through car-fu to animal-fu, or pure pleasure from creative action choreography and the most physical and highest-adrenaline viewing experience of the year.

At its core, Feedback is pulpy, but thanks to the clever screenplay and superb production, it is a marvelously exciting, chilling and devastating thriller on the #metoo theme.