Goldbeater

A half-an-hour-long mockumentary that became the blueprint for the beloved What We Do in the Shadows. Sure, it has a taste of amateurism and the jokes are – by far – not as polished as in the subsequent feature-length piece, but also as a small package, it is effective and quite a lot of fun (Jemaine Clement massively enjoyed playing his role). For the fans of the aforementioned feature film, this is a lovely expansion of mythology, for example if you ever wondered where the vampire clothing goes when disappearing from the mirror reflection.

Whatever opinion you may have about Tommy Wiseau’s person – optimistic visionary, tragic dreamer, or just a total failure who managed to attract too much attention – , it doesn’t matter in the slightest way. Here, it is James Franco who is in charge. And obviously, he’s on top of his game. Interestingly, The Disaster Artist completely nails it. Above all, the cast is on point, the roles are performed with authenticity and, what’s more, there’s a delightful cameo every two minutes (the best one coming just after the closing credits, so make sure you watch till the end). Of course, you’d better be familiar with The Room if you want to enjoy the second half of the film fully. During the viewing, I had a feeling the creators had a great time shooting the movie and went out of their way to convey their passion to the audience. And this in itself makes my day.

A fairytale built upon artificial foundations. Even though all of the characters go through their own small or big personal crisis or tragedy, in the end, there’s nothing the superstar actor trio couldn’t handle! Not only Collateral Beauty’s creators rely on relentlessly milking emotions out of the audience, the viewer is downright turned into an idiot by the way some stories end up. Watching this movie, I think I was in greater pain than some of the main characters.

A lame fail. Even though the movie is trying to look like an entertaining horror comedy digging some clichés out of the ’80s′ camp slashers, it ends as a predictable fairytale whose creators must have seen two parts of Friday the 13th series and called themselves experts of that subgenre immediately thereafter! The fact it’s all PG-13 instead of the required R is the icing on the cake. If only it was funny! But I’m afraid the only joke is that brainless concept.

Act of Aggression is nothing more than the French answer to the American classic Death Wish, produced a year earlier. Jazzed up with Catherine Deneuve’s charms and a silly twist at the end, for the most part, there’s still a lack of atmosphere and no appealing sympathetic actor in the main role as was the case with Charles Bronson. The theme the film is based upon has been dealt with on the screen many times, and often in better ways. This production seriously lags behind.

In the second season of Twin Peaks, David Lynch dropped a bomb and shuffled all characters and motives in all possible directions. This time, he went for the atom bomb – literally, so the storyline can go absolutely anywhere. We’ve entered an uncharted zone of Twin Peaks. It’s a journey inside Lynch’s utterly unpredictable mind. Besides, with eighteen hours of such an unprecedented TV creation, I doubt anyone will ever produce anything even stranger and crazier. Unless it is Lynch himself coming back to Twin Peaks one last time. Fingers crossed.

Excellent occult horror, the comparisons with Rosemary’s Baby are not as exaggerated as they may seem. It has a very slow pace, until the very end there is only one memorable scary scene, but a very nasty one at that. The last 10 minutes, on the other hand, I would have no problem including them in the list of the best horror scenes ever. PS: I have a strong suspicion that the creators of the recent House of the Devil got most of their inspiration from this film.

Yeah, Buried is a very interesting film that takes place in one coffin with one man, one lighter, one mobile phone, one pen… but to tell you the truth, all that minimalism ends up being almost too limiting. I would have liked to have a look somewhere out of that box, which is proof that the creators didn’t fully manage to turn an attractive premise into a feature film. Buried is certainly worth watching, it’s one of the best thrillers of the year, but it didn’t make me bite my nails or get up from my chair in tension, and the logic leaves the stage too often for my taste. 70 %