Malarkey

Quite a mind blowing psychological family movie. There hasn’t been such for a long time with actors that you want to see in some thrilling pose. For example, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are great partners. There is a great chemistry between them as well as between Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, their lawyers. It was quite hilarious how the problems of their clients piled up all at once. Personally it was Alan Alda who made me happy with his nice role, but it was a pity that his role was inconsequential. He didn’t deserve that. Still I have to say that some scenes from this movie, including the fight between Adam and Scarlett where some things should have been left unsaid, are among the top performances and it is worth seeing and it is really worth it to live the story with the characters. Dramatically among the best of the contemporary cinema and the director Noah Baumbach’s best movie so far.

A great respect is due to the director who was able to make quite a thrilling horror movie out of a stupid screenplay. As if there was a pub brawl and putting an end to it gets you pursued by some crazy occultists.

I’m not sure if it is any good to start watching this series without having any previous relationship to The Witcher. Moreover, it is not good either to have read all of the books, played all of the games and hope that this series won’t disappoint you. It is something in between, but as for me as a fan of this universe, it didn’t disappoint. Of course I found a few unclear or illogical points of which you can find a lot more the deeper your relationship to this series is. Still, it is a quite good fantasy piece for which I’m glad because there are currently very few of those, and I’m really glad for every hope that appears in this respect. Netflix didn’t film this series in a bad way, it just did it in its own way. Henry Cavill whom everyone was uncertain about as a main character eventually played his role with flying colors. He really reminds me of the Witcher from the game series. I would say that the story isn’t as good but let’s be honest, with that many characters and unclear story line, the same problem occurred with Game of Thrones as well. We had to wait for the following seasons to see it became a legendary series. And I think that it would be similar with The Witcher. Moreover, in The Witcher you can count on greatly filmed action scenes which are a delight to your eyes. For now I rate it with 5 stars. To hell with it, I was simply thrilled!

Adam Sandler – wacky as always. The guys from his crew wanted to make a parody of western movies so they took it into their hands in their own way. I would say that the casting of characters is brilliant. But what is not so brilliant is the humor in this movie. Usually, I can handle Adam. I like him so that is not the problem. The problem is that there is unnecessarily too much humor which sometimes can lead to awkward scenes even though usually I do like Adam. The guys just wanted to be cool no matter what and to get rid of all those western clichés, so that they did it without giving it much thought. Two hours are too long for such a movie. But not to be just critical, there are a few scenes that are worth mentioning. The most enjoyable scene for me was the one with Steve Buscemi. He was so politically incorrect that it was impossible not to enjoy it. But if you want a good western parody, you should try Manitou’s Shoe. I still watch it from time to time. And that is saying something.

You can’t count on every new English Christmas comedy that comes to the cinema to be the new Love Actually. Last Christmas is a totally different type of movie but it is able to set the Christmas mood just as well. However it is apparent that this movie was inspired by a song. I would be interested in what George Michael would say about it. Moreover it was Emilia Clarke who did this movie good because she is able to bring colors even to a black and white, static pointless short movie. Nevertheless, the fairy tale mood is overdone here and that is a shame. Last Christmas comes across as a quite nice movie but it won’t became a TV Christmas classic.

Jon Favreau got probably excited about new animation technology because after beautiful The Jungle Book he filmed  no less amazing The Lion King. And even though the story is well known and you heard the music a hundred times, it is still brilliant and I was captivated by this remake. And it is precisely this technology that makes me feel as if real living creatures were wandering through that bush. I was even horrified a little by the thought I had while watching this movie that the kids in the future might watch this kind of movies and think what a wonderful world we used to have...

Spanish people and horror genre has been a good combination for a long time. But from time to time it takes a bad turn. La Influencia was quite a mess. Regarding the story line I was lost and wondering, thinking and guessing. The makers turned this ghost type of horror movie on its head and many times chose abstract shots over at least some quality. In the director’s defense some parts of this horror are at least bloody which is not a norm today. But it won’t saveit from me rating this movie with 2 stars.

Tree years later and Eddie Murphy stars in a role that is definitely worth seeing and is slightly different from the roles we are all well used to see him star in. For me, Dolemite is a concept of which I have never heard of but now it is evident that I would put it together with movies such as Ed Wood or The Disaster Artist. And I would definitely like to see the original one day! The filmmaking aspect of this movie is worthy of 3 stars but when Dolemite itself starts to be filmed it strongly reminds me of Bowfinger. Eddie makes exactly the same faces and parodies Kung Fu in exactly the same way. I don’t know if this melancholic return to Bowfinger didn’t make me turn a blind eye to the quality of this movie but in the end I rated it with 4 stars, which this movie deserves.

The reference to The Nutty Professor is evident here. Marlon Wayans plays 7 roles and until the meeting with his sister in the prison he is able to pull it off. Then it oscillates between awkwardness and comedy. Still I didn’t have a problem to finish this movie. But what amazes me is that an actor that few years ago played a superb role in Requiem for a Dream is stuck with comedies and parodies that are relatively nice but I wouldn’t re-watch them.

I’ve never considered the tough guy Shaft particularly cool. But the black guys in America seem to love him. Samuel L. Jackson is a decent choice for this role, so I get that a sequel came out this year. But it’s similar to when Bruce Willis was lecturing his son in the fifth instalment of Die Hard – more embarrassing than fun. And it’s the same here. Decent action, good 1970s-like music, and I don’t mind the African-American approach to humor. But the son? He’d deserve some proper smacking.