POMO

Another attempt at combining horror and social drama, sitting in a corner in the shadow of Darabont’s The Mist. The constant alternation of the two different time planes becomes narratively monotonous after an hour or so. Somehow, with its “relationship content” and all of the clichés it tends to use, it becomes very unlikely that the film may in any way be surprising or bring something new into its subject matter, which resembles that of some recent genre movies. The intriguing premise with a great start fails to fulfill the potential of a decent genre event, leaving only a safe, mainstream drama about the importance of sticking together with a few scary scenes, children at risk and a pleasant Sandra Bullock. It’s not that I didn’t watch it with interest; I just consider it a waste of a great potential.

Mr. Shyamalan put a lot effort into this one. He works consistently with the dramatic potential of the three main characters and their deepening interactions, which bring them closer to one another in the same house. The story escalates and entertains by exploring and uncovering the essence of the brilliant theme (the magical idea of comic book heroes existing in real life) that he created 19 years ago and followed up on three years ago. As we’re accustomed to with him, he did it with abundant visual creativity and thematic references, while making two different points in the climax. But despite the fact that everything fits together in the first point and becomes conspiratorial in the right way, as well as original and bold when considering the viewer’s expectations, I’m not quite sure I wanted it that way. Not to mention the second point, which simply should not be there at all, because the movie absolutely doesn’t build up to it.

Without the necessary dramatic drive, The Mule is a lukewarm cup of afternoon tea. Interesting thanks only to Eastwood’s personality and his old man of questionable character who, as a husband, dad and grandpa, tries to improve the relationships in his family. This level does not bring forth anything powerful, much less original, and the thriller plotline focused on smuggling looks nicely oldschool, but it doesn’t captivate. The villains are not scary enough, and we are not that worried about our “hero” being imperiled by them. Maybe because almost no one in his story would really miss him.

Set in a green rainforest (and on a beach), Annihilation is a more intellectual version of The Thing. It has a rather mainstream theme with a slightly B-movie nature but interesting ideas, escalated into a hitherto unseen close encounter of the third kind, fascinating by its far-reaching imagination and a provocative need to find as many answers as possible in it. The final scene is a return to genre rules, but it turns out well. Garland is not a hitmaker, but rather a hard-core sci-fi filmmaker. While Arrival was about the relativity of the perception of time, Annihilation is about the relativity of biological lifeforms. Totally different, but in both cases brilliant, innovative sci-fi works, ambitious in their content.

A bunch of well-known actors in a surprisingly predictable story that - while you watch it in the hope that it eventually happens - does not deliver any surprises. The emotions of the desire for revenge work in the viewer, however, so it’s definitely not boring. I would just expect a broader story/range of thought from the whole thing. And somehow I can’t see Harrelson as the ultimate bad guy, even though he’s trying hard to act like one. For me, he will always be a stoned, chilled-out bohemian.

The final shot of Ama Dablam, the most beautiful mountain in the Himalayas, which is used several times in the movie, confirms that the filmmakers wanted above all to pay homage to mountains, the majestic works of our planet’s greatest artist – Mother Nature. It is therefore a pity that they borrow well-known footage from hit sports movies (The Art of Flight) and other documentary series and attempt to make the movie a retrospective “best of” (including pointing out every possible use of the mountains by civilization) rather than contenting themselves with piano music and the thoughts spoken by Dafoe. While some of those could have been written by any of us viewers, others lift the film to the philosophical heights that are its ambitious aim.

National Parks Adventure offers a quick look into several American national parks, with demonstrations of sports for which they are suitable (dry tooling, cycling, ice climbing), as well as a nicely conceived reminder that the term “national park” was coined by nature lover John Muir and introduced as a legal concept by his friend and kindred spirit, US President Theodore Roosevelt. The film is visually beautiful – the larger the screen, the better the experience.

A Fantastic Woman is a fragile, you could almost say introverted, film about saying goodbye to a loved one. In this case, the story is made even more painfully powerful by the impossibility of a dignified parting and the realization that finding a person that one could similarly love would be almost impossible. As is customary with South American art films, there is no milking of the viewer’s emotions; everything is intellectually subtle. For example, the use of the symphonic music score is sparing, minimalist, without clear melodic motifs.

Redirected is saved by its second half; moving the story to the countryside and introducing the local characters makes it quite funny. But the constant, totally illogical discovery and meeting of characters anytime and anywhere, which doesn’t even pretend to be a bunch of absurd coincidences, drags the movie down to the level of a cheap farce. The good thing, on the other hand, is that the Lithuanians, acknowledging their admiration for Guy Ritchie, made a frantically paced genre movie with a British action star and partly set in London. And that they weren’t afraid to show their country as an “Eastern European backwater” full of thieves, perverts and the most severe forms of redneckery.

The Sinful Dwarf is a cute, perverted guilty pleasure. The only fault to find here is the overacting and inane dialogue. Otherwise, it is a proud euro trash masterpiece of a B-movie. Don’t expect much blood or gore; there are no murders. The Sinful Dwarf (the character, not the film) is not evil. He’s just perverted. All he wants is nudity, sex and depravity. The uncut version contains a few minutes of pure porn shots with a very different coloring, which sticks out like a sore thumb but, on the other hand, lends the movie the unique charm of unscrupulous exploitation smut, made more interesting by the poetics of childish innocence in the form of mechanical toys. Irresistible.