NinadeL

This calls for a comparative study with Tomorrow, People Will Be Dancing Everywhere. But this is also great. So many smiling people on tractors, new factories and steel bridges celebrated with dancing... There’s so much energy and so much color, and seeing it in the movie theater could give you a heart attack. This really does have impressive tractor drivers in color. Shortly before this color opus, Mach had made two agitation films with a capital A, and he probably could not have had better preparation.

Everybody loves Bek, especially for his comedy and ironic tone, with which he managed to elevate all those other films. This episode, however schematic, has done a disservice by editing many of Bek's own comments on his career, which is valuable. The other comments are just the padding we've become accustomed to on TV. Fortunately, amidst all the ballast, there are the reminiscences of a former MDP dramaturgist and one can be inspired to follow more of Bek according to one's own taste and interest.

Nowadays, it can be retrospectively assessed that Snowboarders started a wave of new films for teen audiences, which pretty much justifies their existence. As a historical impulse or element that had to arrive anyway. The youths born after November had long since stopped being curious about old Czech films and needed something purely topical that they could understand. They will understand especially all the modern details that normalization did not know, and the new faces and the new slang. This, of course, doesn't mean that Snowboarders is any good, but it has become the sovereign king in a hole in the market. The derivative works had to suffer for the next two or three years. And today? Today's teens don't know anything they haven’t seen streamed, so it's possible to bring them back just to that break and wait to see what the designated successor is.

A lovely unpretentious series about the romances that punctuated the 20th century. The film actors are the dominant characters, but they are not the only ones this series is about. Sometimes it is just a repetition of a very familiar story, and sometimes it is quite surprising. I appreciate every new episode, it's always entertaining, although the quality of the archives is often questionable.

I wonder if they used to have this in our video store back in the day... Regardless, the biggest VHS disappointment of my life was Planet of the Vampires. With Vampirella, it's a huge shame that her comics aren't very well known, and this B-movie certainly didn't add to her credit. But those who are interested in one of the sexiest cartoon protagonists, feel free to join her adventures. The classics have great cover art and pulp stories, and today it's a modern read with all the trimmings, including interesting crossovers.

A C-movie oddity inspired by the famous film The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich, transposed to the present day sixty years after the fact. Frankly, developing the story of the Blue Angel cabaret is an idea I'd expect to see more often in lascivious films, but if everything is going to be like this Joe D'Amato masterpiece, I'd rather have nothing. The iconic story from Heinrich Mann's novel (1905) has no place in late 1980s Italy. While I've accepted the genre-related crap D'Amato made about Rudy Valentino, this isn't even that type of unintentional fun anymore. Unfortunate. However, I understand that Tara Buckman singing "I Still Dream Of You..." may have its audience, but I'm not one of them.

Let's be honest and point out that modern New Zealand literature is not a very prominent topic in the Czech Republic. Janet Frame's books have not yet been translated, but that makes it all the more enjoyable to listen to her film biography. Jane Campion's finesse and refined taste take us through three chapters of her life, which has everything - anchoring in her family, growing up, the many missteps of the 20th century in a nutshell, and above it all, her faith in people. I'm very glad I wandered into the Kiwi Film Fest.

Jane Campion's work is, in the best sense of the word, visceral. I'm glad she stuck to Keats' story. Her perception of the world lifted him up and reintroduced him. Beautiful images, realistic emotions, and of course excellent sets and costumes. It is a joy to experience such melancholy. I am looking forward to adding John Keats' letters and poems to Fanny Brawne in my library alongside Mozart's letters to Constance.

An unusually depressing episode about Milena Dvorská, who has received attention in all the major acting cycles of the present. So what was it about? About her role as a mother? About her in The 13th Chamber? About political attitudes? About her missed chances at the National Theater? About the fact that she used to be cast mainly based on her looks? As usual, everything was just hinted at, expressively portrayed by relatives, classmates, colleagues and last but not least by the theater critic Just, who dreamed of the question: what did Milena Dvorská do wrong not to take part in the new wave? As always, basic facts are missing, emotions are more important, and after all these years of documentary series, that makes it really boring.

A classically tiresome episode from the Czech series about famous people - impressions and experiences of various people (relatives, acquaintances...) above all, yet it can't be said that it somehow holds together. We don't get the basic axis of professional life, nor do we get a clear outline of the main aspects of the private life. Pavel Taussig didn't even make it into his first film role... But it's nice that even Blanka Kovaříková was surprised about who she was actually writing a book about. Unfortunate.