Malarkey

A fairy tale produced this year by Czech Television brought back its reputation. Even though it is not a jewel among fairy tales, it was quite enjoyable. The theme is quite simple but diverse. Who had a lot to offer was Marek Eben with his chivalry that I enjoyed a lot. But as a fairy tale I found it lacking in the “fairytaleness”. The combination of Matouš Ruml and Karel Janák however works.

Not even the deluge of ideas that Alain Chabat has there is enough to secure the full enjoyment for the viewer. Personally I expected that it would be crazy from the beginning till the end considering it is a Christmas comedy by Alain Chabat. But it only has its crazy moments occasionally and the result isn’t anything exceptional. It is a pity. It wouldn’t even occur to me that after Asterix and Rrrrr! this would be his most “normal” movie.

A really crazy fairy tale that was a total success also due to its good soundtrack. It however never found its way to my heart.

What the fairy tales of nowadays are trying to achieve was already achieved with all due elegance by The Three Veterans in 1983. It is not surprising that it is a legend in its genre. Which fairy tale can guarantee joy for the kids as well as for the adults? It is the story line and the long nose of Princess Bosana that enthralls the kids and it is the amount of great lines that enthralls the adults. Moreover, there are so many actor legends present that we wouldn’t get this number nowadays even with all our actors put together.

I kind of think that it must be the musical aspect of Frozen that overshadows all else. Precisely because of it I was looking forward to this movie and in the end it is just this musical aspect that makes this movie somewhat good. The animation is just average. On top of that, for a fairy tale, the story line is quite confusing.

When you know that every scene and every shot is of such importance to you as the last one and it’s accompanied by the resonant melodies played by the king of synthesizers Giorgio Moroder, you are unable to rate it any other way than with 5 stars. The quality of this movie is so good that it is beyond the line of reality. As is the story itself.

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.