lamps

I don't really understand the complaints that this film is just a one-off and a wannabe variation on Hitchcock by Soderbergh's standards. KIMI is a conceptually brilliant genre film, where a savvy filmmaker expertly conveys outdoor threats to a heroine suffering from agoraphobia and subordinates all stylistic choices to the narrative in a meaningful way. In its short runtime, it runs like clockwork and makes the most of every motif at the right time. A film from the heart and from a man who knows what he wants to tell and how he wants to tell it. And that's really not the norm. 85 %

What can I say? It tickled me emotionally, but it didn't tear me apart. It's just that, while I'm happy to wait for further developments and maybe change my mind in hindsight, I really don’t think that this is an effective and appropriate way to tell this, at its core, terribly rudimentary video game plot. I enjoyed the way Bill built his closed world the most, but it was hardly worked with afterwards. They lived in harmony for decades until Joel predicted gang raids, which eventually happened once… and then peace again. The connection to the main line was very tenuous, though I understand Joel's current psychological motivation after reading the letter. Like I said, I'll see after watching the whole series, but I'm starting to think the creators are just polishing a turd. So far, it only shows that these post-apocalyptic themes have been exhausted – it would be more appropriate to adapt the story kaleidoscope of “World War Z” in this style.

Horror for the TikTok generation. It mostly blew me away at the end because it's basically a rip-off of Aliens, where instead of a space monster there's a futuristic doll, the adult heroine learns to be a mother, and the little girl is the ultimate badass. It’s also a critique of the marketing frenzy that drives technology against humanity using emotional coercion. I had fun, but I find it ironic that it's the kind of consumerist and faddish product taking advantage of modern trends that it actually warns against

I tell myself that this is exactly how every girl I try in all honesty to make contact with must feel: she'd rather cut off her fingers and throw them on my doorstep than answer me. McDonagh's once again wipes its ass with Hollywood clichés and serves up another searing relationship film about people separated from the "norm" of civilization, alternating funny and bizarre scenes with tragic ones in a balanced rhythm. It is about the boundless loneliness of those people who have chosen such a life for themselves, as well as those who are in it involuntarily, a morally pure and naive versus skeptical view of the world. And the fact that sooner or later they'll converge. There was no twist that grounded me this time, and the character of the old fortune teller seemed a bit unnecessary, but I will definitely be thinking about this film for some time. Only I don't know yet if it's because of the overall message, or just because of some scenes and the performances.

Christmas home invasion creature feature black comedy with an excellent snowy backdrop. Dougherty fuses German folklore and American genre traditions into a sufficiently entertaining mix in which children are devoured and the titular devil doesn't grow tiresome thanks to a late entry. Formal finesse, good actors and unobtrusive film references are sometimes enough to satisfy, especially at Christmas. 70 %

There were a few sequences that reminded me of an expensive video game, and I can't decide how much I actually liked the 3D – on the one hand it's immersive, but on the other it leads your attention too much by refocusing and prevents you from enjoying large units with many action layers. Otherwise, no complaints. The first had more action, the second has more well-knit relationships between the characters and deepens the transcendent connection to a fictional world that blossoms before your eyes in splendour beyond the highest expectations. This is how you tell a story and dazzle with an image. I enjoy Pandora and its exploration tied to innocent childhood curiosity, I enjoy the altered eco-message and the technological megalomania that ensures a truly unprecedented immersion. This is where the future of cinema is being shaped, without forgetting the story, which I personally found quite different and more intimate than last time. And I can't wait to see where Quaritch's (again, the best character) blind conquest syndrome and personal vendetta will turn next.

Very nice. An old-school fantasy film in the vein of The Princess Bride with a world that carries the traditional Lucas theme of an unlikely hero-saviour. The scenery is gorgeous in places, it doesn't feel like Howard is just behind the camera making sure the shot has the right angle to accommodate all the gratuitous effects. On the other hand, the often practical effects never slow down the narrative thanks to skilful direction, and the appearances of all those supernatural creatures, which the characters foreshadow in dialogue at the beginning of the journey, always have a specific charm. The cast is carried along not only by the likeable Warwick Davis, but especially by Val Kilmer with his sharp tongue and ultra-romantic lines – he may be a jerk, but he has charisma to spare. If it weren't for the more static finale, which is far from equal to the grotesque and at the same time scary passages with the dragon and the trolls, I would give it full marks. The genre's playfulness and sincerity won me over.

It's insanely long and not bound by any rules of a fictional world that stands somewhere between realistic, mythological, comic and genre. Terrifier 2 deserves a medal not only for its violence, where the resident villain literally destroys his victims, but also for its extreme take on the concept started by the first Halloween. Art the Clown, obviously a supernatural being, walks around town on Halloween, everyone thinks he's a freak in a mask (a freak in the mask of a brutal killer who became a bit of a celebrity after the events of the first film), and no one questions the fact that he's out trick-or-treating like any playful kid. But Art plays it a little differently and Damien Leone, especially in the middle section, stages incredibly cheesy scenes that I would call the pinnacle of black-humour horror. It is a complete fusion of a folkloric (hence genre) myth with a costume that is actually represented spuriously in horror films – instead of creating a mystical identity, the costume merely conceals it and allows it to commit terrible atrocities unnoticed. This relationship to pop culture permeates the entire film, in which the heroine rises thanks to her self-made costume. Terrifier 2 isn't very good in terms of pacing, but it does a great job of picking up on the societal fascination with the scary things that can lurk behind the festive facade of Halloween or other spiritual traditions. And Halloween and other horror franchises don't need parroting to do this, but rather building an original world and transforming clichés into a modern evolutionary line of grindhouse horror. The amazing earnings from the US speak for themselves. 70 %

Playful, but without balls and a proper climax. Peele again pretends to amass all the wit in the world for a thrilling finale, but in sum, he just patiently teases and misses the mark. There were a lot of suggestions and I appreciate especially the reference to the history of motion picture and its representative or media function, but I enjoyed the more mysterious and yet more down-to-earth Signs much more.

I loved the Emmerich-like grasp of kaiju-inspired disaster concepts, but Troll was a big disappointment except for the promising first half. While in the beginning I was quite entertained by the clichés connected to Norwegian fairytale mythology, the story gradually diluted into blatantly ripped off and unfortunately boring lines and sequences that my brain almost froze. The production design is decent and Troll has charisma, but Uthaug lost his creative charisma somewhere between a trivial blockbuster homage and a harmless allegory about bad people and two good people. Next time, I’d rather watch something from Roland. 50 %