Marigold

I liked you, Adam. Your sarcasm, your snappy dialogue, your discomfort, your sense of deranged characters. This is like Roland Emmerich trying to be very clever and insightful. Everything is hollow, the timing is off, and the ironic jabs are very off indeed. I understand that it's part of the general annoyance at the state of the world, but it actually reflects much less of it than it seems. It's kind of a scented bubble. With a fart inside.

Humble, beautifully filmed, full of dramatic scenery and subliminal tension, which is, however, quite forcefully injected by Johnny Greenwood's sometimes shallow underscore. Campion's script is unfocused and the plot, divided into fragments, doesn't create coherent dramatic tension, and in the end it kind of depends on the power of chance, and I therefore struggled with the point rather than lived it. The strongest motif is not the son's love for his mother or the misalignment of the two reclusive characters, but rather the relationship between the two brothers, which quietly fades from the plot after about half an hour, much like Jesse Plemons outplaying the rest of the cast. The result is a diet broth of There Will Be Blood and In Fabric. An elegant piece that barks but doesn't bite.

A completely equal rival to Bergman's original. It cleverly quotes and simultaneously updates the emotional dynamics of the couple, problematizing male and female roles and tossing around motivations and key quotes. The result is a completely new, more relevant view of marriage for today. Leaving used to be too difficult, now it's too easy. The constellation changes, the dark house in the middle of the night remains. Chastain and Isaac are an absolutely riveting pair. Levi has created a sultry microcosm, brimming with meanings and valences that you can talk about as long as you like. Yet you will always end up talking about yourself. Very Bergman-esque.

I forgot to cancel my trial subscription to Apple TV, so more or less out of boredom I tried to click on For All Mankind and kill some time. Two days and 20 episodes later, I'm totally hooked. The simple idea of an alternate history, where the Soviets are the first to fly a flag on the moon and the space race is on, leads to an excellent blend of emancipatory drama and a kind of realistic Star Trek prequel. It's a nicely inclusive affair with lots of great strong female and ambivalent male characters that probably won't please those who like NASA as a bunch of space cowboys. However, if you're into Star Wars (the real ones), The Martian and First Man, this show is an absolute drug.

Serena and Venus as the perfect projects of the brilliant strategist and visionary Richard. Nothing against it, but the film is too respectful of the King's gloriole. Although it tries to problematize his motivations and the execution of the divine plan for the "two Jordans" several times, it always ends up slipping into schematic adoration. Green isn't an inventive director. He just repeats a learned pattern of punches and when he has to do a big smash at the end to win the game, he hits it out of bounds. Partly because Venus is so absent-minded throughout the narrative that one can't quite sympathize with her efforts. Smith is literally begging for an Oscar in every scene and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets one. It's a similarly digestible and pre-chewed morsel as Green Book was some time ago. Thanks, but I'm sticking with Borg vs. McEnroe. And if you are looking for emotion and psychology, get Untold: Breaking Point. That film speaks about the essence of tennis about a thousand times better and more dramatically than this mess. P.S. There's hardly a film where Bernthal appears and doesn't add a star on top. Give him a big role already.

An elegant black-and-white drama that is staged stiffly in the first half and scripted dully in the second. Yet the story of two women who can straddle the worlds of black and white has a strong dramatic tone. The debuting Hall, however, manages to elegantly describe it rather than evoke it in a truly impressive way. In the end, Passing does not come across convincingly as either a personal story or a metaphor for black faces and white masks.

It’s not without flaws, but euphoria prevails nonetheless. It’s a soulful epic and a surprisingly moving story about overcoming fear of oneself and the unknown. The distant future could hardly be more realistic and strangely intimate. The figures came out well, and Villeneuve overcomes the hollow mannerisms of Blade Runner and serves up images with sweat and blood. Duncan Idaho has finally replaced Aragorn in my heart. At several moments the film evoked exactly the same intense feelings as the book. However, it stands on its own sturdy legs as a film. I'd watch the sequel immediately...

The days of going to see Bond for the explosions, gadgets and cleavage are definitely over. Daniel Craig has taken Bond to a time when protagonists bleed, feel and have a finite amount of time. No Time to Die beautifully concludes the arc begun by Casino Royale and, despite a chaotic villain, delivers exactly what I expected: a surprisingly intimate and moving finale for the best Bond of all time, Daniel Craig

It’s flat and uninspiring... so basically a faithful portrait of how I've always perceived Schumacher. But it's superficial, emotionless, far from the genius of Senna. The creators erected a memorial blessed by the family, but really they are just confirming that Schumacher will always be more of a cold piece of marble among the greats of the sport.

This is a film that tries to kill a man to save him. Nobody can rip a man's eyes out of his head and turn them inside out like Carax. You stare into the abyss and it stares into you. For me, it is a surprisingly intimate film about pain, self-deception and fatherhood, about the illusions in which we lose ourselves, and also about the fact that film as the ultimate illusion can sometimes tear off all masks. Rationality is overrated, imagination will save the world. Or at least give it a decent funeral.