DaViD´82

It’s not so easy to stage “Coriolanus" well. On the one hand you have to struggle with the fact that this isn’t one of Shakespeare’s best works. Not that it’s bad, but everything the author says here he has said in his other plays and often better and here it’s rather too full on. Another drawback is the “classical pomp". Here they handled it unusually through absolute minimalism which they apply very ingeniously (apart from the jeans), but in my eyes it doesn’t really suit this (especially not the jeans). Because of that, this is a bit like Cimrman’s “Hamlet" without Hamlet. Otherwise no complaints; with his great performance, you forget that he is too young to play Caius Martius (although it’s striking that he plays him identically to how he played Hal in The Hollow Crown) and the others (with the occasional exception in the shape of unimportant supporting roles, isn’t that right, Sørensen?) are never far behind; particularly Gatiss and Findlay steal the show.

The reverse side of anthropology through the differences on the academic ground, in a wider context concerning exactly what an anthropologist can(’t) get away with these days. The central point is the fact that (not only) the anthropologists (un)knowingly take hostage the famous and already publicly known “prehistoric" Indian tribe, the Yanomami, driven by ambition, settling of accounts with other scientists or satisfaction of appetites. As is customary with the documentary work of José Padilha, his main advantage is that he leaves it up to the viewer to decide what to think and doesn’t say “this guy is really evil, this guy is touchy about the results of his lifelong research being overturned, this guy is like this and that guy like that". He simply submits the facts and offers them for discussion from all sides; including even the uninvolved academic community or Yanomamos themselves.

I can’t remember a documentary that was so smart and managed cleverly and effectively to work with such a wide range of emotions and was so strong that it could slam any objections to the fact that everything was presented in a way that was uncritical to the immaculate heritage of Ayrton Senna (or else poor Prost who is presented here almost like the devil himself).

Everything in this is g(o)od(s). Director duo of Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs adapted Lego as… Well, as an angular version of Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs. In other words it’s just as unbalanced, but also peculiar, imaginative with masses of sophisticated absurd humor with one gag after the other, goofy and playful. And if the (creative) playfulness is a synonym for Lego as bricks, now it also applies to Lego as a promotional feature film. Which I think is the most important thing. P.S.: Both the dubbing and the translation are extraordinarily good and the brainwashing song is in Czech much more impressive and catchy than in the original.

You can tell a good documentary by the fact that it manages to absorb you despite subject matter that you don’t give a damn about. And in my opinion, nothing can be less interesting on paper than a documentary about the importance and history of the America’s backup singers. The strange thing is, that even though I was blissfully unaware about this field, I know nothing more about it now (apart from the discovery of Lisa Fischer). I think everyone is well aware that black girls didn’t have an easy life back then, and it might also occur to you that being a good backup singer is difficult enough in itself and hard work full of self-denial. And there’s nothing more to it. Or, rather, there is. Lots of talking heads, slapping each other on the back, here and there telling a compelling story. And then there’s great work on the music side, but that is somehow what you’d expect from a music documentary.

The war on terror transformed into a self-fulfilling prophecy. You certainly had a teacher who could put a whole class to sleep with his monotonous delivery however interesting the topic was. Jeremy Scahill is just that sort of teacher. And it’s a fundamental drawback, because it is evident that he is an extraordinarily talented investigative journalist who isn’t afraid of delving into unpopular topics and asking the western world unpleasant but burning questions. You can just feel how he is disgusted with the current situation, how he would like to shake up the status quo of “things we don’t talk about". At the same time it is clear that he isn’t interested in shoveling controversial manure onto a family tomb, but that he’s trying to change something by uncovering faults. He has a talent for finding the right stories and evidence, which sometimes isn’t absolutely conclusive or without question marks about their credibility, but he doesn’t claim anything about them, he just believes that these facts should be known and everybody can make up their own mind. And it’s not so much about big conspiracies (even though everything about JSOC is crying out for attention) and more about personal fates. He lacks one thing; judgment. He should have let somebody else do this presentation, someone who could sell it well and who wouldn’t talk so much, and not to be so literal where it isn’t fitting. This really does seem like ninety-minutes of report reading in front of a committee than anything else. This also applies to the form which isn’t ideal and tries to hide the lack of relevant footage by filming Scahill walking though towns, riding on a train etc. So, it’s highly interesting and edifying, but due to the form and his unfortunate delivery, it’s rather boring.

The Louisiana season: Or how existential crime series à la Dürrenmatt dealt with a Scandi overlap thriller à la Larsson in a Deep Southern (and thanks to Rusty, nihilistic, and thanks to Marty hypocritical) way, with the essence of Southern noire. Which resulted in a (pan)genre movie with inimitable genius loci which is extremely existential, very symbolic, not literally reading the unspoken between the lines, very dismal, very subliminally disturbing, very mosaic-like in terms of narrative and primarily very (but really very) good. The Arkansas season: After the second, conceptually boldly different (however not completely successful) season, the third “yellow-bellied" season returns to what worked first time. And it works again. Again we have an oppressive and disturbing atmosphere-oozing masterpiece of cinema where the genre plot takes the back seat and serves purely as a catalyst for in depth character study of ambiguous, unbalanced animate characters across time. For its casting, performances, camerawork, production design, easy to follow despite three timelines... All of this is worthy of one of the current flagships of quality TV. The bigtime problem storyline is the one connected with the present which, thanks to paper rustling games with a problematic memory, serves as a carrot on a stick leading us toward gradual and final (non)revelation. And to make it worse, this becomes the central storyline of the last episodes. It doesn’t help that the creators are constantly would-be mysteriously hinting “just wait, you’ll see". While, to the attentive viewer, it becomes immediately clear where things are headed. In a purely crime genre where the case and (not)solving it play first fiddle, this would probably work on a scale of a few episodes. But not as the connecting thread of an eight hour movie “about characters and relationships", which season three tries to be. P.S.: Even HBO itself jumped on the bandwagon with the creators by beating about the bush with the description “frightful case of child murders". But this is like saying that the Red Sox won, but when you look at the results you find out that not only did the Red Sox not play, but the game ended in a tie. | S1: 5/5 | S3: 3/5 |

Orca: Killer Whale II. A documentary with two approaches. The predominant passages sailing in the waters of “humankind is a band of hypocrites trying to turn creatures that deserve our respect into cute wittle moneymakers" are excellent and the fate of the imprisoned Willy who is forced to entertain families... Ahem, Tilikum is uncompromisingly touching and sad. But it doesn’t even matter so much that everybody is singing the praises of orcas just because they “are more intelligent than most in the animal kingdom", as if this gives them the right to greater freedom than any other animal kept in water worlds, circuses and similar shows. I was taken aback by the presentation of orcas as nice and sweet creatures, almost like the second coming of Christ on Earth where Tilikum is an unfortunate exception proving the rule and this anomaly arose due to bad treatment; one begins to wonder whether this is the intention or if the author is really so naive that she doesn’t realize how orcas behave in their natural habitat. The conspiracy line about evil corporations and their decades old evil plan is also a problematic area. The creators themselves even admit by the way that several conflicting versions of the same situation always exist and that no hard evidence exists, but here they tendentiously give room only to those versions that suit them. And this isn’t about their attitude to SeaWorld as such; their stance is sufficiently convincing even without their version of events. And the court judgment is a Pyrrhic victory; now SeaWorld staff will have better protection, but perhaps the only joy that the poor orcas had in their swimming pool life has now been taken away from them: contact with their trainers.

“I’ve learned to believe people when they say it’s over. They don’t want to say it, so it’s usually the truth." You don’t drink a bottle of twelve year old whiskey down in one. And the same applies to admen, gradual dosage. You need to make time for them. Pour yourself a quality drink meant strictly for sipping, light a cigarette (You say you don’t smoke? I’m setting the atmosphere here!) and let yourself be sucked into the series which mostly involves a couple of characters in an interior with a drink and a cigarette burning in their hand talking about stuff. Seven seasons as a study into the American Dream, walking hand in hand with an American smile and the dark side of consumerism towards that Dream ("Happiness is just a moment before you want more happiness."). And what is amazing in view of the chosen style, topics and purposeful non-pandering to the viewer, it is never under any circumstances pretentious. And shouldn’t you be more interested in whether Don Draper (one of the most complex and most unbalanced characters currently on quality TV) and the rest manage to live up to the rumors about this thoroughly satirical and best written, acted and in all ways best serial ever? But does it really matter, if this is unarguably the most stylish of serials? And just at the moment when you grow comfortable with the style (which isn’t a matter of just one or two episodes, more like one or two seasons, also due to the fact that season one is a bit shaky and not as sophisticated as the rest of the serial), it is more than likely that you will find a positive answer to the above questions. A frequent criticism (and rightly so) is that all the parts “in the office" are powerful enough to pull this movie along, while the parts “at home with the family" are rather “up and down". Luckily, even at the weakest moments it can lean on the incredibly sturdy characters (not just Don, but also Pete, Peggy, Roger...). Mad Men never slip into the waters of the commonplace or a feeling of filler just to make up the minutes; and when signs of this begin to show during season three, they resolve it with a “big bang". There is a risk that all of this style and great atmosphere might turn you into an alcoholic, hedonist and you might run up some debts, because in view of the number of episodes, you’ll need a whole lot of cigarettes and quality spirits for your evening viewing... Crates of it. A problem area was dividing up the final season over two years since at the end of the first half that moves characters forward by catharsis, the second half serves just as a superfluous epilog for some of them which in the last few episodes reprehensibly relies on the fan base rather than an adequate ending. But I’m not saying that the ending isn’t perfect. Because it is. PS: It has one fundamental flaw; it’s in color and no black and white. That would make this season even more stylish (tried and tested using my own eyes). | S1: 4/5 | S2: 4/5 | S3: 4/5 | S4: 5/5 | S5: 5/5 | S6: 4/5 | S7: 4/5 |

Early Mann is also Mann. There are a couple of dead ends here, but essence of his style is clear to see here already; primarily the cold, male atmosphere and fascination with cities at night. There is no point pretending that the story would have worked better if the movie had been shorter, but in the end the important things is whether or not you like the background music by Tangerine Dream. You see, their typical eighties-style synths (which not many people can play as well as they do) have the power to raise long, tacit journeys through the neon jungle to hypnotic heights, as well as to burst your eardrums and get your attention.