Malarkey

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.

Quite inventive for a “ghost-type” of horror movie, which was a pleasant surprise. I’m not giving these four stars for no reason; I was very surprised and enjoyed myself a lot.

It seems that Netflix decided to try its hand at European historical epics. During the last two years, it produced the best two films of this genre in quite some time – Outlaw King and The King. These films have similar titles, topics and quality, but the latter seemed more professional to me. Maybe it’s because of the Shakespeare references, great dialogues and actors, intimacy of its story or perhaps the action scenes, with an epic finale and postscript that made me melt in pure bliss. For an intimate historical film full of politics there are quite a lot action scenes and witty lines, which is definitely good. It reminds me of the 1980s and 90s, the era of classic historical epics. By the way, did you also do a double-take over the fact that Timothée Chalamet, an actor with obvious French roots, plays the English king and the indisputable Englishman Robert Pattison plays a bitchy Frenchman? Their performances were very entertaining.

A pleasant American series. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, but also no reason to be over the moon about it. Also I don’t really think that the characters are original enough to keep being entertaining in every scene they appear in. Yes, it is about an autistic man for whom seemingly ordinary things might present a challenge, for the comedy purpose. And I’m not saying that I didn’t laugh at times. To be honest, however, I don’t think that it’s exceptional enough not to get lost in the large amount of family dramedies and sitcoms among which it belongs. Pleasant, relaxing but forgettable. Nevertheless, not a bad series to chill with after work.

I must say that immediately after watching Klaus, I put it on my imaginary shelf of best Christmas fairytales, right next to The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, which I must rewatch every Christmas. It’s been a very long time since I saw such abeautiful and original animation together with no less original story!