POMO

The audience gets closer to the protagonist by slowly uncovering his childhood in a dysfunctional family. At the beginning, they might feel cold towards him, especially for his overly radical outsider opinion and reluctance to accept anything from consumerist reality. As a viewer, however, I was able to overcome this coldness towards Chris and ended up with tears in my eyes. Into the Wild is a wise, psychologically complex film that boldly explores deep existential questions. Moreover, it is beautiful. And Sean Penn is a genius. I consider his feeling-based portrayal of Los Angeles to be the second best scene of the film (behind only the brilliantly edited ending).

Mongol is a well-cast and visually beautiful epic shot in stunning Kazakh and Chinese locations. Unfortunately, however, its script makes only a bit more sense and is slightly more consistent and engaging than that of Emmerich’s recent 10,000 BC. A pity.

Jumper for senior citizens.

This B-movie is a mix of everything we’ve seen a hundred times before, without a single idea, with hard-to-follow action scenes and flat characters. The more space Neil Marshall tries to cover – be it as a screenwriter or as a director – the more he messes up. And Doomsday is his most expansive film yet.

Paul Thomas Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit are film alchemists. Daniel Day-Lewis is a genius actor and There Will Be Blood might become this century’s Citizen Kane. This cynical, original and epic portrait of capitalist America is a masterpiece.

I saw this film in March 2008 in a unique ancient cinema (the small village of Nučice near Prague; there were dry toilets in that cinema!), which worked immensely in the film’s favor as it enhanced the atmosphere and bolstered my positive impression. What needs to be praised here is the intention of the creators to show the road to hell, when the other filmmakers show just the hell itself. The Last Train takes place on board a train heading to Auschwitz and ends with the arrival in hell, leaving the audience so horrified that they don’t need or want to proceed further. At the beginning, the film looks like the debut of a naïve director of theatrical comedies, but later it fortunately turns into a depressing drama, benefitting from a tense atmosphere and the time-proven appellation “this is how it really happened”. Too bad the film wasn’t able to make more of the individual characters.

With the exception of the mammoth hunt at the beginning, this naïve CGI fairy-tale has absolutely nothing to offer and is not entertaining, not even with Emmerich’s expected trademark silliness. It’s been a long time since I felt that I completely wasted two hours in a theater. From the script to the actors, 10,000 BC is an utterly empty movie. Ugh.

A cheap, straight-to-DVD B-movie from the Weinsteins. Prey is the type of movie that undermines itself as soon as the opening credits roll by using terrible music reminiscent of 1990s computer games and then confirming its trashiness with ridiculous camera effects in the mold of “let’s watch this from the left”. Surprisingly, however, some of the jump-scares are effective and two scenes even look like they were directed by someone. What is Bridget Moynahan doing here, though?

Superbad is probably the best movie produced by Judd Apatow. It’s so earnest and depicts the problems of teenagers so aptly that it might move you to tears. It is a crazy comedy about the shenanigans of a couple of young guys, in which the innovative screenwriting ideas and dialogue might give you more “film pleasure” than the Coen brothers’ sophisticated humor. And not many teen comedies are able to do that. I want a sequel! I want more of Seth, Evan and Fogell!

This very interesting, original thriller is a bit like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, as it is a psychological study of an emotionally broken man and his extreme behavior caused by his fear of the world around him and also of himself. Neil Jordan was an excellent choice. Too bad that the ending is so stupid.