Lima

Poster tagline: EVIL! BEAUTIFUL! DEADLY! EYES DESIRE IN THEIR VEINS THE BLOOD OF MONSTERS!!! This is what happens when screenwriting amateurs, really journeymen actors from Corman's stable, write a role tailor-made for themselves and think they have a sense of humor. I like B-movie science fiction movies of the Golden Age, because they are mostly funny thanks to their naivety, and the way they take themselves seriously makes them even more funny. But the boys here went at it from the opposite side. They don’t take themselves seriously at all and they make attempts at pretty cheap humour. The first 20 minutes are almost unbearable – unfunny situational comedy, when all that's missing are farts and burps. When the plot shifts to aliens, or rather to two dominant alien women and their slaves – vegetable-men, whose appearance is described by one of the heroes with the words "Wow! That's the first time a salad's ever tossed me!", the actors occasionally let out a witty line that aptly throws off the usual genre clichés. But these are just exceptions, the feeling of awkwardness lasts until the end of the film. There are also such treats as a secretary with a gas mask on her face, and on the way to the space ship towards the end of the film the heroes meet a Comanche, Sitting Bull, with whom they try a peace pipe and drink firewater. Hahaha. Another oddity of the era I can cross from my list.

Clear evidence that electronics labeled smart are a potential threat. That’s why I decided to disconnect my smart washing machine. I'll miss the quiet rustling of my dirty laundry, but what wouldn't a man do for safety. I also unplugged my computer because it was suspiciously overheating while playing this movie, and my monitor because it was flickering suspiciously. I'm glad I caught it so early, no one will make a fool of me!

The Rock is cool, no doubt about it. Otherwise, this is just a bunch of terrible, boring clichés, dull dialogue, amateurish acting and overwrought CGI; just everything I hate so heartily about the current mass production of the dream factory. And three people wrote the script for this? This shows that some professions in Hollywood are even easier than receiving welfare. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Emmerich!

These teen novels from the pen of female authors, wrapped in pseudo sci-fi/fantasy crap are an unfortunate phenomenon of today's pop culture. Paraphrasing Simona Stašová in Cozy Dens: it cost so much money, and it's so stupid. I felt genuinely sorry for the respected character actresses Jodie Foster and Naomi Watts. I know how expensive mortgages in Florida can be, but still, do these two ladies need to do this?

The script must have been written by Jára Cimrman, based on one of his plays. So it's clear, you are my son, but you could actually be my father, or brother, and if the time paradox allows, father and son at the same time, along with my mother, who’s actually my daughter. Whatever. Time paradoxes have always been there, they are part of the sci-fi genre. What I just realized is that the Terminator has no place in today's cinemas. What seemed revolutionary and innovative at the time of the release of Cameron's first two Terminators, which enchanted awestruck audiences with the metamorphoses of the T-1000 model thanks to digital effects that were at the dawn of their age, now, in an age overcrowded and overstuffed with CGI atrocities, no longer impresses anyone and has nothing to offer beyond that. And when you present the core of the story, those time paradoxes I mentioned earlier, as clumsily as Alan Taylor does, then there's a problem. Especially since the film doesn't have a single (!) memorable action scene that you'll remember years from now. Unlike, for instance, Terminator 2, which is a textbook of the action genre. And Arnold? Due to the plot, his presence here is rather symbolic, all he has to do is show up and throw in a few one-liners and fans will be satisfied. But he's fine, and it has to be said, the only (surprising) bright spot of the whole film. If the Terminator has to age, it should certainly be in the way Arnold has demonstrated here.

Soderbergh's redemption from the prison called Hollywood and a clear argument for those who claim that TV production in recent years is more interesting and progressive than film. I am no longer surprised by Soderbergh's words that he has finally found the creative freedom in contemporary television that was so lacking in big-studio film production.

Poster tagline: NATIONS RACING TIME AND EACH OTHER – TO REACH COUNTLESS MILES INTO SPACE... AND SAVE THE WORLD FROM TOTAL DESTRUCTION. THE STORY THAT COULD HAPPEN TOMORROW TO US!!! This thing is something incredible. In the basic outline of the plot, it's as if Robert Zemeckis had gone back 50 years and made a chatty, low-budget version of Contact, without any special effects, and all the surrounding dialogue and intellectual ballast seems to have fallen out of the speeches of zealous preachers of popular religious sects of the late 19th century, brimming with warnings of the flames of hell. And shining into the mix are sentimental shots of the apartments of peaceful, God-fearing families, the true bedrock of American society. Hallelujah! The incipient Cold War, Western society's fear of creeping Communism, and the first signs of an emerging McCarthyism are very much in evidence. Unlike some of the reviewers here, I was not offended by the portrayal of Stalin as a product of the devil and the ex-Nazi as an admirer of Satan, it was rather to be commended (Communists and Nazis should be punched all the time). The tearing down the portrait of Stalin by Russian men who "came to their senses" must have been a satisfaction in its time, but otherwise... otherwise, I'd blast the ardent Catholic fanatic to Pluto and let the ideological foul air out for a long time. The fear of Communism can also be approached in a tasteful and factual way, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956, but that is not the case here, on the contrary, after watching it you feel as if you’ve just read a year-worth of “The Watchtower”.

A somewhat unjustly forgotten gem nowadays, though not for connoisseurs. A film that inspired an entire generation of filmmakers and started the Czech (Slovak) New Wave. Visually captivating, the camera works magic even when capturing seemingly ordinary panel impressions with a dense forest of TV antennas, and the solar eclipse scene is hauntingly beautiful. And all this is underscored by a slightly industrial soundtrack with discordant elements that is several decades ahead of its time in terms of boldness and sonic timelessness. Zeljenka was, in short, something like the Slovak Zdeněk Liška, albeit several levels less artistically potent. And the two leads, with their endearing slang and natural acting, give this film a sense of desired authenticity. At the Summer Film School a few years ago, on the big screen, it was a real treat.

Half an hour before the end, I was still convinced of a five-star rating, because such a realistically dirty, unkempt war film had been missing for a long time. Add to that the production values of fantastic sets, Pitt being the walking embodiment of charisma, and the lunch at the German woman and her daughter's house scene, which I consider one of the best movie scenes of last year. But then came a hardly acceptable scene, which even the Soviets at the time of masterpieces like Liberation would not have liked in terms of exaggeration and heroism. Ayer just got carried away and the whole great impression went down the drain, or into the mud of a tank belt trail, of which the film is full.

A digital hell.