Malarkey

The murder of a local Bavarian brass band singer unsettles his fans. Most of all, of course, Resi, who finds the dead body plus the killer bangs her on the head with a lamp. Then an investigation gets underway, in which you find out that not a single person around the singer liked him. So as you can guess, there are more than enough suspects. Probably the trickiest case Benno has ever investigated.

As expected. From the filmmaking point of view, Peter Berg did not disappoint. The explosions at the marathon and the subsequent confusion are filmed so well that you will bate your breath. It literally makes you feel like you are there with the cameraman. But this is where all the positives of this movie end. Unless you like American hysteria and an emphasis on patriotism. But that is, after all, apparent already from the title of the film, so count on the portrayal of America as the unique country and there is a number of characters in the film, who, of course, make it so unique.

Until I saw this movie, the only thing I knew about this band was that it existed. I have to admit, I had no idea how much was behind it and that one of Finland's leading directors had a hand in forming it. So once I started watching the movie, I was quite shocked. The humor is quite uncompromising and draws not just from the people in the band, but also from the people around it, who do not need to put a single emotion into their roles, and yet they manage to say everything they need to say. After seeing the movie, I had to play back some of the musical performances several times. For example, the Finnish polka right from the beginning, that really knocked me over. Or when the band performs in front of an American producer in some dilapidated barn. That's pretty crazy too. During the course of the movie the humor slightly weakens, and by the end I felt a bit that the musical numbers kept repeating themselves. But overall, I can't help myself but to give it the full five-star. For the musical intermezzos, for Vladimir, for the explanation scene, explaining why in each scene he has a can of beer in his hand or even for the scene where the band is in prison and demands beer. A unique comedy that simply deserves the five-star rating.

A rather interesting drama about adolescence from a slightly different point of view. I would dare to compare this film to magical realism. Growing up, the three girls get entangled in ome pretty absurd situations, while in real life you would find about just as believable as a junkie living in a van on the street next to your apartment. However, it is shot in quite an interesting way and some situations were rather enjoyable. It serves well as a small-scale film with a message.

Some scenes are overly digital, others for a change are really interesting, full of action and realistic. But the whole story of Admiral Kolchak is surrounded by a pink storyline that seems like it was cut from a princess fairytale. So you don’t really know if you’re looking at a rough war movie, where legs are torn, or the sweetest Russian chick flick that exists. A very bad film, where the only positive thing is that it introduced our legionnaires a bit, who were pretty rough on the Russian nobility.

I had no idea that one of the most useless films I’ve seen recently would be shot by my favorite Scandinavians.

This episode was somehow cursed for me. I saw the first scene with the tractor and the dead tractor driver several times, but I never finished the whole episode because I always fell asleep. However, that wasn’t because this episode was boring, but rather because I always tried to watch it at the most inconvenient time. After beer, before bedtime, etc. Nevertheless, I laughed a lot. In the scenes where Benno is convincing a doctor that it’s not a murder, just so he doesn’t have to investigate it, or, especially, when constable Pfeiffer asked Benno to make him an investigator too, because they have a lot of work and he would love to help. The fact that he messed up everything he could is different story.

Do you remember the movie Smoke? Then this movie is pretty similar. Crazy, stupid, wacky, but in spite of all of that, you have the urge to keep watching it, the minutes pass quite quickly and you can’t stop wondering which actor or actress will appear next. For me, as a debut, it was pretty good. I wouldn’t watch it again, but it has a certain status of uniqueness.

I consider the New Zealand movie What We Do In the Shadows an exemplary vampire comedy movie. This film is also quite humorous, but at the same time I had a huge issue with it due to its inaccessibility to the viewer. Not just when it comes to the characters, but also humor. And when I felt I was beginning to like this film, it managed to knock me down me with a terribly strangely, even grotesquely filmed scenes in which vampires kill or just levitate. In the end, I didn’t even have time to decide whether I liked it or not, because once I started to think about it, the film was over, and I was watching the end credits. So obviously, three stars…

While there is a lot praise for this movie in England, for me it was just too boring. I was expecting some proper English dry humor, and what I got was a shallow stupidity, which entertained at least with its filmmaking craft, but in the end I was glad it only lasted for 88 minutes.