POMO

Had it not been for the success of Drive, Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas would’ve never agreed to star in Only God Forgives, a film so anti-audience that I doubt it will get a wider cinema release in the US. A not exactly model American family operating in Bangkok makes a local machete-wielding police chief very angry. Who is related to whom is revealed only gradually, with the steadily rising body count. Everyone is a psycho either raping fourteen-year-olds, dealing drugs or poking people’s eyes out. Omnipresent darkness, deliberately placed lanterns and neon images, dragon symbols in the red half-light, slow-moving figures, dark or psychedelic music, and Ryan Gosling staring into space as hard as never before. The film plays with audience expectations, misleads, hypnotizes, scares, sometimes fascinates, but does not provide any final satisfaction. Vithaya Pansringarm’s cop is a properly demonic sadist, while the mother played by Kristin Scott Thomas is a properly unscrupulous bitch. A strange movie that will make you think, but doesn’t come to any conclusions.

The mechanical, hastily put together screenplay of Fast & Furious 6 is closer to Die Hard 5 than to Fast & Furious 5. Meeting, action, meeting, action, meeting, action and so on. The meetings are not as funny as they would like to be and the action is comically exaggerated and not easy enough to follow, given that Fast & Furious is the most successful action series of today. Furthermore, the sixth instalment does not take place in an attractive exotic environment like the fifth one does and its story has detours that make it unnecessarily protracted and less dynamic (the visit in the jail, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez racing), and we’ve already seen all of its highlights in the trailers.

The Hypnotist is a decent thriller that focuses on the gradual unraveling of a sophisticated mystery. Some moments are predictable, but the story always keeps some questions unanswered. The married couple’s troubles shouldn’t have gotten so much space, as they slow the film down unnecessarily, although a certain hypnotic slowness is part of the game with the audience. The gloomy atmosphere of Stockholm in winter is not as powerful as the creators had intended, but Mikael Persbrandt excels in the role of the hypnotist. His performance is the best part of the film.

This film introduces us to the unexplored environment of the psychically demanding work of 911 operators and relies on the emotional acting of the Oscar-winning Halle Berry, for whom “her case” becomes very personal. This thriller starts out nicely and is brutal and exciting; the scene with the victim in the trunk of the car offers some original moments. But in the climax, which was supposed to top it all, the movie loses all inventiveness and delivers one cliché after another before coming to a dull ending with zero catharsis. The result is a routine affair, which has nothing to make it stand out among dozens of similar flick about chasing murderers and rescuing kidnapping victims. It cannot hold a candle to films like The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, that are light years ahead of it.

This theatrical love triangle has lively visuals, but a dull soul. Baz Luhrmann uses all the tricks that worked in Moulin Rouge! but does not come even close to depth of the portrayal of of tragic love achieved in the musical. We get to the character of Gatsby slowly, with great anticipation, and Leonardo DiCaprio looks good in his pastel suits (like everyone else), but his character paradoxically turns out to be the most impersonal and contradictory element of the film. We don’t really care about him, even though the film tells the story of his journey towards his dream, embodied by the beautiful Daisy. Carey Mulligan is merely an ornament, Joel Edgerton as her gruff husband is more noticeable than DiCaprio’s Gatsby. The only natural character is the “representative of the people” played by Tobey Maguire. Moulin Rouge! was energized and brought to life by its original energetic and emotionally engaging songs. The Great Gatsby pulls out Jay-Z’s overused hits (identifying with New York) and futilely tries to add a romantic dimension to a book of opulent pictures by using a captivating song by Lana Del Rey. Such a powerful theme, so many big thoughts ... And the viewer’s eyes will remain dry. ___ Second viewing: The scene of the confrontation of characters in the hotel room – if the whole film was done so intimately, in a psychologically concentrated fashion and dramaturgically sensitively, i.e. without unnecessary formal excesses and, in terms of music, satisfied itself with Lana Del Rey in key scenes, it could have been extraordinary.

A wannabe funny gay-parade farce made by a respected director, who needed to have some fun after the demanding (and excellent) drama The Skin I Live In. Some fun with cocaine, smuggled to the set in his own ass. A film for which, try as I may, I cannot find a more apt designation than crap.

This film is more of Dorota Nvotová’s testimony about one period of her life than a documentary about Nepal or life in Kathmandu. We look into the capital of the country through the lens of Dorota’s charitable activities (helping the kids in the orphanage and on the street), but if the creators used a voice-over to also tell us something general about local life, the film would have more value as a documentary. But comparing the difficulty of being there and in Bratislava through Dorota’s direct and honest narrative, which does not pull any punches, makes the film personal and distinctive enough to get a message across and make you root for the protagonist. The film also has nice music.

The screenwriter had a vivid imagination and combined mysterious, unexplained real-life events with horror and sci-fi themes straight out of a horror B- movie that has no place in cinemas. The found-footage concept repeatedly defies all logic, the characters of the American group of adventurers are of no interest and the performances of local Russians are ridiculous (the interviewed grandma inconspicuously reading from her text is just… no comment). There is some proper horror tension in the climax, but the overall product is incredibly inane.

Iron Man 3 is the Skyfall of Marvel adaptations. Jon Favreau’s original boyish entertainment greatly benefits from the darker and more mature tone. The realist and cynic Shane Black loves Iron Man and develops the character of this most interesting Marvel hero to a depth that no Avenger has received yet, while preserving Marvel’s trademark playfulness. Stark’s feelings and protectiveness towards Pepper are more tangible, while his existential considerations are more selfcritical and fitting. In addition, there’s a great game of good guys and bad guys going on, where the character of Stark’s ex-girlfriend, played by Rebecca Hall, makes sense, as – most importantly – do both villains (Raimi, watch and learn). They deliver a clever and – with regard to the skeletons in the closet of today’s global politics – provocative twist, which also gives some space to the delicious creation by Ben Kingsley, my favorite. In addition (especially in the second half), expect some great humor and easy-to-follow, firework-like action, which will make you think that special effects just cannot evolve any further (in the end credits, pay attention to the number of members of the Digital Effects Crew). Iron Man 3 is an intelligent blockbuster super show made by enthusiasts and perfectionists, and it won me over completely also thanks to its many perfect details – the fragile Gwyneth Paltrow in an elegant white costume, Iron Man glove ideas and self-dressing armor, b&w buddy teamwork reminiscent of the best Lethal Weapon movies, and the fantastic airborne scene with the clever use of a 3D arrangement of people falling in space, supported by great superhero motif (for me, the highlight of the movie). Marvel should open its own Marvel Studios following the example of Universal Studios amusement parks and dedicate a section of it to the third Iron Man.

In the middle of the movie, they think of turning on night-vision cameras in all rooms to find out what happened at night ... Watching it at some time between the heyday of The X-Files and the first Paranormal Activity would’ve been fine. Today, this crossover of various horror concepts has nothing new to offer and only recycles what we’ve seen a hundred times. The goosebump-inducing scenes work, but is it really a win when something works in the film simply because of the work of the sound engineers? A thankless second-tier role for J.K. Simmons.