Malarkey

You probably have to be an IT nerd to get why this funny 6-episode series is called Dimension 404. Personally, I must say that every episode was entertaining, crazy, absurd, interesting, original, and definitely very well made. They are actually short stories in the style of The Outer Limits, like the user M.a.t.t. already mentioned. And well, truthfully, I was pretty happy about that. I wouldn’t concern myself too much with the reviews on this site. Don’t necessarily expect an absolute quality, but rather a quality absurdity. It's not a bad idea to sometimes relax in front of the TV and have fun at the same time.

I have probably seen too many of these music dramas already, since I cannot give this movie five stars. However, I completely understand why the overall score is so high. It has quite a few surprises up its sleeve. Only, the whole time I was waiting for the finale and it didn’t manage to shock me as much as I’d wished. The first surprise was Bradley Cooper. Who would have thought that a comedy actor who became famous with the Hangover trilogy will eventually star in such a romantic epic and in addition will show everyone that he can sing and write pretty solid Southern rock? Well, another surprise was, of course, Lady Gaga. I accept her music, I respect her as a pop star, and I acknowledge that her pop music is original. Acting-wise, she wiped the floor with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, who were recently laughing at her at the Golden Globe awards. Hats off. A regular girl, who worked as a waitress, turned into a world-class star. Some of the movie scenes are literally legendary. It’s a shame, then, that the finale wasn’t as epic. Other than that, I must add that if you like music and follow the behind the scenes, you’ll be able to find a whole array of seemingly inconspicuous moments, which will however say a lot about the given scene. That’s what I really liked about it. After viewing I debated, pondered, and debated once again. Bradley and Lady Gaga blowed that cinematic universe into such dimmensions as if they were real music stars. Beautiful.

An interestingly grasped movie consisting of short stories, which is absolutely perfectly guided by John Malkovich. He, in the role of a lecturer, spouts one pearl of wisdom after another, and during his lecture, the filmmakers show us life stories connected to the love of some of the participants of the lecture. Everything is then finished with a tale that is acted out by Malkovich himself. The movie is seemingly built on him, but the stories also work on their own. I can’t say I wasn’t entertained.

I liked the scenes where Patti Cake$ with her chums was creating music. It came across really well. Her, Nigger Antichrist (who shouldn’t be called a Nigger, but Antichrist is okay) and a crazy Indian guy, who added a bit of Bollywood into the heavy rap, initially came across as the biggest amateurs. In time, however, they turned into pretty solid professionals, which is also a nice thing about the movie. What’s worse, though, is that I don’t really appreciate this kind of music. It didn’t make the impression as if they wanted to impress the serial murderers on Life Sentence Radio, nor as if did they wanted their music to be played by typical pop radios. It was a sort of small-scale film, which has a few good ideas about writing music. A person who knows what that’s about can at least appreciate the movie for that. Otherwise, if they don’t like the music, they’ll condemn it anyway.

I watched this movie because of my interest in European cinema. Tired, expecting to relax and rest in the following 2 hours. All of that without reading the summary. If I had known to put on sweats so that I’d be on the same wavelength with at least some of the characters, it would have been more digestible. This way it was worth turning off at some moments. And it’s not the fault of exclusively the plot, but also the boring way in which it was filmed. The only plus I can see is the camera work, which at times managed to conjure up interesting and nice tricks, which made the film exciting at least for a moment. Otherwise, not that great.

Oh God, what a drivel. Pretty boy Liam Hemsworth, the youngest of the Hemsworth trio, is trying to look cool in a techno-thriller rougher than the coarsest sandpaper. He walks around for maybe half a movie without his T-shirt, just to show his pecks, sixpack, and shoulders. While doing that, he’s acting cool and pretends to be an IT specialist, who is trying to hack a company the size of Microsoft. But the hacking is done in a confusing way; I walk over here, tap my phone 2 times to show that I am actually doing something on it and just like that the doors I need to go through open. After that he sits behind a computer, where only a few swift double-clicks on the monitor cause many applications to open and close just so it would seem truly effective. It’s a shame that he didn’t show his pecs and sixpack during that moment, too, ‘cause at that point, it would be a Boo!

I was excited. But I was initially dumbfounded by the fact that the movie wasn’t funny at all. I told myself that it’s probably going to be more of a drama, which is usually the case with European movies in a similar vein. But over time I realized that even the most dramatic part of the movie was really bad and so after finishing watching it I went to bed pretty sad, unsatisfied with the average, or even mediocre Scandinavian film.

A well-known story of an air crash with action sequences that are a throwback to the 1990s. But the rest is a bit boring and dull and isn’t salvaged by the few callous shots which, like it or not, had to appear due to the topic of the story.

The Romanians know what they’re doing with their movies. Especially when their movies are set in the time of Ceaușescu. That time oozes irony and sadness. I don’t know why, the movie reminded me of Cosy Dens. The only difference is you won’t get much fun here. Quite the opposite. The story points out what and who communists managed to destroy in the Eastern Bloc during more than 40 years of their rule. Taking up topics like this can never hurt.

The depiction of youngsters living in the capital of Chile, who are constantly ogling, oftentimes intentional, fatal accidents on the internet, until they become a part of one such situation. The movie is completely emotionless; it cuts through human nature like a blade made of cold Japanese steel. Easily and precisely. The movie can’t get more than three stars from me, but it still keeps you in suspense. The finale is then a real human ordeal, which proves that the film was worth watching.