Remedy

The bleak atmosphere of Wyoming, cut off from civilization, is reminiscent of a modern Wild West, where the principles of "modern and advanced society" have not yet arrived. The harsh landscape, inaccessible community, and communication (in both senses), with at first glance a very fragile heroine once again in the lead, whom no school or experience in the big city can prepare for anything like this. Wind River is a dense thriller, soaked through and through with depression, in which the only decent light is the character of Jeremy Renner. His Cory Lambert is the pure example of a vigilante whose existence is needed from time to time in the real world. Taylor Sheridan again plays with contrasts bravely, which is of course most evident in the character of the female protagonist. A wild bunch of dangerously twisted hillbillies, with Elizabeth Olsen's rookie FBI agent on the front lines against them. A splendidly depressing spectacle with luxuriously written central characters. "This isn't the land of waiting for backup. This is the land of you're on your own."

If Martin Scorsese didn't have a hand in this, I'd probably avoid it in a big way. Unfortunately, I have to say that his contribution is not very good this time around, and except for about three very interesting camera shots, the whole film is very monotonous and at times drags incredibly. I understand what Martin Scorsese wanted to convey and it certainly has a concept. But in the end I suffered through the whole two and a half hours more out of respect for the director than for any other reason.

Judd Apatow has partially repaired his reputation with me after the very weak This is Forty, although a slight reduction in the running time would definitely have been helpful. Still, Trainwreck is a pretty tightly-paced comedy with an unexpectedly funny LeBron James and a fairly convincing Amy Schumer. I know the longer running time in comedy is such an Apatow trademark, but it only fully worked in Knocked Up. Even so, a pretty good 3 stars.

The biggest achievement of this film is that it shows the gluttony and danger of "force" on both sides. In fact, it chilled me just the same whether it was shouting "white power" or "black power". The typecasting of rural South America, focusing on washed-up hardcore racist rednecks, is truly magnificent here, plus some of the comic situations made me laugh out loud a lot. Too bad about the last few minutes, in which Spike Lee leans horribly cheaply to what is for him the "right side". To some extent it devalues the whole film, which is probably what I regretted the most, because otherwise it's pure filmmaking at its best. It just needed a little more detachment at the end.

It's a shame about the predictability in the last half hour, because there's really only one possible conclusion after the room (room with a capital R) is revealed. The first ninety minutes, however, are brilliant in terms of building the mysterious atmosphere, aided of course by Morricone's strangely minimalist yet perfectly fitting soundtrack. Despite the final predictability, however, this is an interesting contribution to the genre that mystery drama lovers should definitely not miss.

I haven't seen a psychological thriller this rough in a long time. Tornatore doesn't mess around with anything too much and from the very first minutes he serves up a raw, drastic life portrait of an Eastern immigrant trying to normalize her life in Italy, at least a little bit. The plot has plenty of supporting themes and subplots, which positively adds to the psychological depth of the story. I honestly can't think of many similar films where the psyche of the main character is subjected to such deep analysis. The Unknown Woman is a multi-layered psychological film in which a complex picture of the main character is gradually built up through disturbing flashbacks and present drives (also burdened and determined by the past). It's quite atmospheric at times, but also a very unpleasant spectacle. A strong 4 stars.

For the casual passerby: you can bend over backwards and it still won't work without knowing the previous films. To enjoy Endgame and fully appreciate all of its references and many of its secondary themes, you simply have to watch those previous 21 films before watching. However, the overseas reviews didn't lie, as Endgame is an epic conclusion to one huge comic book saga with all the fanfare. Many viewers will compare it to the previous Infinity War (myself included), but Endgame is actually a pretty specific film within the universe. After all, the Avengers got their asses kicked in Infinity War, and they have to fix it in Endgame. When you think about it, that fact alone demands a continuation of the story. That's what I thought before viewing – that it would actually be very hard to surprise increasingly demanding fans in any significant way. Yet the opposite is true, because Endgame's paths are often truly inscrutable, and there will be extremely intense, stunning, shocking, and damn moving moments. Still, there were a few things (but really only a few) that rubbed me the wrong way and unfortunately, compared to Infinity War, I had a slightly weaker sense of wholeness and compactness. But if I'm going to rate this as the culmination of a still-for-me incredible cinematic/comic book era (which I've been watching for 11 years), I can't go below 5 stars. As a "standalone film" (which of course it can never be) it would probably be 4 stars. On the other hand – compared to the previous installment, I have to appreciate that Endgame really goes to the bone in working with the characters and more than one moment here was a fan dream come true for me. It's damn admirable that the entire gigantic creative team around Kevin Feige can still surprise, shock, and move their most loyal viewers, even at this advanced stage of the MCU.

Zahler certainly doesn't worry about whether or not it's "sufficiently audience-engaging and engrossing in every second" and builds the entire exposition at a very tepid pace indeed. Still, I wasn't bored for a moment, which is mostly a credit to the great dialogue and the gradual tightening of the screws. It was good to see Mel Gibson back in a proper role after all his (personal) screw-ups and he and Vince Vaughn make a great duo here. Anyway, this third feature film by Zahler is probably his most conceptually interesting out of what he's done so far. It doesn't have the frenetic "video game" vibe of Brawl in Cell Block 99, nor is it as intensely explicit as Bone Tomahawk, but the social/societal dimension of the overall narrative is obvious and very important here. Through the lens of Mel Gibson's character, the whole story could be seen as a critique of the modern hyper-correct age, where the old ways have long since disappeared, and where those "old school honest men" have it pretty tough unless they're willing to climb up the right assholes. In fact, I see the whole film as a kind of sighing over the present time and especially at the principles and mechanisms on which today's ideals are built. [Febiofest 2019]

The problem I have with Finding Dory is that the entire narrative is essentially based on her short-term memory problem, which doesn’t seem like enough to me. I'm not saying that this interaction and collision with reality wasn't funny at all, just that unfortunately all the "short term memory" jokes soon become repetitive and simply boring. Compared to its predecessor, this sequel is overall less funny and paradoxically contains more of the serious scenes, which instead generate negative emotions. But I just have to give it an extra half star for that Mark Eben. 3.5 stars.

I mostly enjoyed spotting the pop culture references, where the ones to The Shining and The Exorcist were very entertaining. It's undoubtedly an entirely original subject, I just found myself wondering at times how some of the scenes would be handled (or not) by school children. I'm in no way discounting the importance of this film in terms of the evolution and future growth of animation in general. Plus it has really good cinematography. I've just never been as fired up about it as I "probably should have been". For many a cult animated film, for me a pretty passable animated film with an unnecessarily scary Sid character – through the lens of a child's perspective. 3.5 stars.