J*A*S*M

Certainly, more drama (or rather, sombre romance) than horror, but Dino Risi knows how put up a good atmosphere. Given the country of origin, you have to expect a higher level of naivete, but it’s not so bad. For me 7/10

Until the last moment, I couldn’t believe it would be so good. Lego Movie is packed with ideas, both in the visuals and in the dialogues, and it was such an onslaught at times that I almost couldn’t keep up. For a commercial movie for kids, it has some fairly smart overtones and an interesting resolution, which is of the self-serving kind, because it defends all the previous nonsense, but it’s not totally devoid of meaning. Really, I’m satisfied in every sense, this is the first blockbuster (if we can call it that) in a long time that exceeded my expectations. The theme song is so terrible that it’s incredibly catchy.

Indie directors shouldn’t get into commercial blockbusters, so I wouldn’t look forward to it only to be disappointed. There’s enough action, I believe, but it’s not exciting, which is a far bigger problem than if there was not enough action. The most interesting characters are removed in the first act, and for the remainder of the film, everyone stands staring like a moron, or either think up some bullshit (the bomb here is used in the same weird way as in the last Batman from Nolan) or try to arouse the emotions of the viewer (unsuccessfully). If they had “forgotten” about the story and just let the monsters beat the crap out of each other, it would’ve been better. But they didn’t and the result is painful several times. Visually it’s great, as expected, I would love to print out some frames and hang them on the wall, but when things move it’s really bland. And what pissed me off the most was that the unidimensional protagonist always shows up by chance exactly where the monster is heading. Were the Japanese Godzilla from the past the same? If that is the case, the bullshit has remained bullshit. And I don’t like bullshit.

Somewhere half-way. I don’t glorify Verhoeven’s classic, so I went into Padilha’s remake without prejudice, and yet it was unable to win me over in any significant way. As an action flick, the action scenes in Robocop aren’t exciting, and as a satire, it’s not sharp enough, even though it has some promising hints. Overall it’s unremarkably bland.

After Borgman, we have another excellent weird thing this year. Jesse Eisenberg delivers a convincing double performance and Richard Ayoade convincingly portrays the nightmare of a quiet, shy and replaceable person who can make his best effort without that having any meaning, because his antagonist alter-ego manages to use everything against him. The story takes place in a beautifully atmospheric, dreamy industrial world that has no room for jokes or humour, and yet it is shot with humour, or rather, with detachment. Very satisfied, I really dug this film, both in style and contents.

Paul W.S. Anderson would do better if he bought a villa near Naples to relax on the beach and only looked at Mount Vesuvius, instead of subjecting audiences to more boring and uninteresting CGI crap like this.

Up until the sixty minute mark I was pretty satisfied and thought of giving it four stars, but the moment “that” (which should be clear to any viewer) begins, the film lost me. At first, West manages to portray the atmosphere of an idyllic community or sect that hides something rotten under the surface, thanks in part to the stifling sunny southern environment where the sect lives. It has just the right shabby feeling of an exotic town full of brainwashed people and gave me an unpleasant and anxious feeling; and I could also relate to the protagonists, the journalists. But the moment “that” begins, all those feelings go to hell. The film loses all its atmosphere and tension, exactly what needs to happen happens (plus several improbably shot deaths), and The End. And I rather not talk about the questionable and surprising alternating between found footage, mockumentary and classic film… I still think that West is a very talented horror director, but the truth is that he hasn’t made me very happy lately. First it was his weak bit in the first V/H/S, then the utterly lazy contribution to ABCs of Death, and now this average mockumentary, and he wants to make a western next? What happened with the upcoming horror sci-fi Side Effect? That sounded ten times better than The Sacrament and a hundred times better than a western. Hopefully, he’ll recover.

OMG! This is the future! No, we only have a different timeline. An excellently written, feel-good rom-com? A great idea with a smart screenwriter who knows how to get the juice out of it, solid direction and a feel-good soundtrack. A film to kick-back.

A young couple leaves civilisation behind to move to an abandoned house in the woods. Naturally, they record everything with a camera, because that’s what people escaping civilisation do all the time (well, yeah, the bloke is a filmmaker looking for inspiration, but it’s still a little dodgy). When I realised Mr. Jones would be another of the endless series of found-footage films, I almost gave up on it, but gradually, its quality began to win me over. In the woods that surround the house, these documentarists come across totemic scarecrows and their masked creator, who the girl identifies as an anonymous artists, relatively famous in certain circles (something like Banksy), known as Mr. Jones. Suddenly, the documentary gets a central theme and now they can begin to investigate and reveal the mysterious mythology behind Mr. Jones. And that investigation gets fairly atmospheric and creepily unsettling – after a long time, a horror movie that gave me a pleasant feeling of anxiety. The scary scarecrows of twigs and bones, the burnt scary scarecrows, the scary lair of Mr. Jones, the scary underground passages beneath the scary lair of Mr. Jones, the scary Mr. Jones, etc. In the last act, the space-time of the story falls into a surrealistic nightmare that combines both elements of last year’s good indie horror flick Resolution and the know-how of David Lynch about messing with the heads of the viewers without loosing their interest. Mr. Jones, and especially its last act, is an interesting experience that right now I don’t feel the need (and the courage) to rationalise. For the time being, I’m happy to have really enjoyed it.

It’s far from great, but I think my colleagues here and in IMDB are being too critical. Devil's Due is an unremarkable, and derivative found-footage that doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, it simply recycles stuff that we have seen several (many) times in recent years. But at least it isn’t about a group of documentarists lost in the woods... I liked the two protagonists and the effective shocker ending (it reminded me of the 10/31/98 segment from the first V/H/S by the same director). 5/10