Kaka

I hope it's dawned on everyone far and wide that Daniel Espinosa is not a director of grim historical thrillers, because he's not very good at choosing his writers. He’s good with atmosphere and setting, but the stupid denouement isn't quite the same as the fact that he sinks the whole thing into dark grey fuzzy filters. Please someone get him to make a Bourne sequel, or another Rambo, because not many people can do harder, rawer action. There's not much of it, but it's delicious.

The expressive means are the classical mainstream of Brian De Palma – nothing innovative or superfluous. But unfortunately, as it is traditional in his works, there too many script twists, mindfuck situations and plot turns. And adding some Lynch-like stuff to all of that is not very wise, either. Still, it's impossible not to prase the refined aesthetics and work with music and camera.

A bit too much teen cover, but otherwise it’s a quite interesting probe into a boy's life, or rather thoughts. A classic story at the beginning, which turns into a quite mature and watchable thing over time (with Julianne Moore's arrival on the scene). For a film about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's age, this one is more distinctive than it may seem at first impression. Scarlett Johansson is great again.

Great atmosphere and impressive craftsmanship, but otherwise heavily detached and cold. There’s plenty of the traditional Verhoeven stuff (violence, explicit eroticism), but that doesn't necessarily make the film good as a whole. The attempt to go back to Holland, to be original and make a European-style film that seemingly unties the creative hands and allows for experimentation didn’t quite work.

The Pursuit of Happiness on steroids, only that instead of the stock exchange, we have rugby. It's clear that overweight middle-class Americans, who are blindly full of the right values, with a preference for the simplest and most understandable (i.e., literally as stupid as possible), loved this and went to the cinema in droves. But comprehensively speaking, this "how it's supposed to look" commercial has neither a dramatic arc nor a hallmark of realism. It's all too stilted, straightforward and uncomplicated, going for a simple level start-finish. But individuals who have to fight for something more than the standard in life know very well that this is not exactly how it works. Sandra Bullock's acting is very economical and spot on – her interactions with the characters, on the other hand, are fantasy.

An exquisite Victorian romance, perfectly in tune with the current formal and aesthetic trends of modern filmmaking. Raw cinematography, zero pathos and spare dialogue passages, where everything is focused on editing, the actors' facial expressions and overwhelmingly unspoken emotions. Very modern yet period-accurate and full of the traditional values we love so much in these tales of fate from yesteryear. You'd almost want to say that these cinematic affairs were left in the dust somewhere in the late nineties, but thankfully that's not true, they're still around today, they're just far fewer and of a good quality.

Carefully written, thematically urgent and grandly generous in acting. Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Alan Alda, and co. take this courtroom drama up a notch. Though on first impression, the intimate feel and modest marketing make it look purely average, this it's exactly one of those films that doesn't tend to be great, but deals with greatness quite deftly.

Full of typically European trademarks: spare minimalist direction, little music, basically pure conversation in the raw industrial setting of an oil rig. Full of vague ocean vistas and dense ideas, narratives, and attitudes. Sadly lacking the drive and with relatively little of the catharsis I would expect in a film of this calibre. Sarah Polley is fantastic.

If Stallone had made and starred in this banger 20 or 25 years ago, half the action genre fans would have lost their minds and we would have another movie classic in the world. Today it feels a bit archaic in both script and visual execution, but as an homage to the simple action movies of the 1980s it's good. Those classic trademarks are here in droves: old cars, rednecks everywhere you look, an incredibly buff Kate Bosworth, the ever sexy Winona Ryder, old rock hits, and most importantly the best in terms of power and uncompromising action - bravo! An addition to the genre that is not a disgrace, just a little lost in time.

We've seen it all this many times somewhere else, and even more so the script. But when you have Tony Jaa vs Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa vs Michael Jai White on the screen, you get the feeling that there will be something to watch, even if the editing is the silliest and the budget the smallest. And there really is something to watch. A thoroughly satisfying average and, within the action genre, competent thing that may yet ably reincarnate Lundgren's otherwise declining career.