D.Moore

It occurs to me that it's not exactly flattery when (for example) Hollywood is referred to as the Dream Factory. If it makes the audience dream, that's good. But when the stars HAVE to dream because of it, it's worse. Sunset Boulevard captures all this transience very convincingly, mercilessly passes it on and still has something to say. Buster Keaton's role (he said one word, but twice!) delighted me, and Gloria Swanson, William Holden and Erich von Stroheim thrilled me.

The film has a number of really good scenes (Josef Kemr with Lubomír Lipský, Jan Pivec with Jiří Sovák, Vlasta Burian with Vlastimil Brodský) and directorial ideas, but also a rather annoying guide in the form of Ladislav Pešek and, above all, one big paradox - the second story is about a cautious literary critic who is unable to take a clear position and is afraid of being too praised or criticized. I have exactly the same feeling from the script of Focus, please!

One of the best Marvel movies, if not the very best. Fortunately, the trailers didn't reveal everything, so the plot of Civil War is surprising, whether you know the original or not, and yet it is not at all overdone and, moreover, from beginning to end it flows so naturally, not a trace of any awkwardness... In short, the complete opposite of (the first and second) The Avengers. Impressive quiet conversational scenes like Singer's X-Men are interspersed with Paul Greengrass-like action, jokes are not a necessity but a welcome spice, what is meant to be dramatic and fateful is so, and when it comes to emotion, it is 100% touching and not the least bit ridiculous. The new characters fit in quite naturally (the likeable Spider-Man), Henry Jackman, unlike the previous Captain, composed seriously listenable music, and finally someone thought that in the epic ending of the film, a flood of digital special effects does not have to destroy cities to make the audience clutch their throats.___P.S. It wasn't until now that I realized what Batman v Superman was missing, which, by the way, has a very similar plot, but it just serves it worse.

To my surprise, it really wasn't an outright horror, although the name of Vít Olmer (and his own grinning face at the end of the opening credits) prepared me for the worst. Fortunately, however, it is a story based on Oscar Wilde’s work, which stars 100% reliable people like Petr Nárožný, Jiřina Bohdalová and Naďa Konvalinková, and it just had to turn out at least a little decent. And it did. "Dear Sir, a well-behaved person, as well as a well-behaved ghost, when he walks into someone's bedroom, he knocks first. And please don't shake those chains! Don't even knock during the quiet hours of the night, otherwise I'll have to banish you from the house! If you can't do without your night walks, then oil the chains. I could recommend an excellent Tammany lubricant to you with rising sun. Good night, sir." - "Good night."

The film has not been preserved in its entirety, but there is not much missing in it, and if it had been preserved, it probably would not have been better. In its best moments, The Twelve Chairs resembles a silent grotesque, in which somebody speaks here and there by mistake, but otherwise there is not much that is worthwhile. Vlasta Burian and Adolf Dymsza form a very strange and unbalanced comic duo (guess which one is the better one), they don't understand each other unless they speak the language they just made up, and neither did I.

A pretty original idea and a pleasantly unpleasant Carpenter-like atmosphere, but the shooting scenes and the like bring it down from my point of view. Surely characters who appear in a horror movie don't have to act stupid just because they appear in a horror movie, right?

You don’t often see such an elaborate and still entertaining film, in which there is suspense, humor, romance, action and who know what else, without it getting in the way. Hitchcock doesn't wait for anything, he gets things right at the beginning and, with the help of the actors and Herrmann's predatory music, does whatever he wants with us for more than two hours. And we don't mind one bit.

The Birds is still as sensational as I remembered it, a joy to behold. Perhaps what I admire most is the gradual building of the atmosphere and how smoothly the film moves from an interesting relationship drama full of likeable characters to a fierce thriller with a fight for life. Each scene with the birds is not only incredibly suspenseful, but also even more suspenseful than the last, so that the amazingly chilling attack on the schoolchildren is trumped within minutes by the "pterocalypse" in the city, which is later surpassed by the multiple horror finale in the house. The technical aspects of the film are still extremely impressive, and if it strikes anyone as dated, then please let it be - I continue to find The Birds terrifying and probably always will.

At first glance, an underrated and at best mediocre six-part TV show, which, however, hides a surprising amount of humor that is on a par with Možná přijde i kouzelník. Why not, since both were created by František Polák? There are several reasons why I give Ring volný an above-average rating, and the first of them has almost nothing to do with humor - it's the flipping of songs, when for example Václav Neckář sings “A tak dál nosíš po kapsách sny mládí" and Waldemar Matuška sings “Lékořice", and both of them fit beautifully. Another reason, but which is humor and I honestly don't know what to name before first. Perhaps Helena Růžičková and Václav Neckář's brilliant parody of Korn's song “Ne, Maestro"? Ivan Mládek, who sings “Duhová víla" together with Hana Zagora to the accompaniment of Ivo Pešák's dance, later “Lásko, mně ubývá sil", while Pavel Bobek, in return, gets to play “Neopatrný křeček" (who will never poop on campus again)? Or Marie Rottrová, who, together with Petr Nárožný, will perform the great scene with the tuba and harp? Eva Pilarová swinging with Vladimír Menšík? Naďa Urbánková accompanied by a family choir composed of Jiří Hrzán, Helena Růžičková, Jitka Molavcová and František Filipovský? The nonchalant humor of Yvetta Simonová and Miloš Kopecký? There's a lot going on, and it's a pity for a few weak points like Vera Spinarová's singing of “Jízdenka", because otherwise Ring volný was a great success. Even the banners hanging all around are very funny when they say, for example, "The workers of Prague bakeries say hello to Petr Spálený".

A wonderfully mysterious film, the kind of honest spectacle that gets more and more interesting and suspenseful, and is a joy to watch the first and hundred and first time around. James Stewart gave a tremendous performance, and he fell for Kim Novak in a way that probably anyone would. And Hitchcock's thoughtful shots are more than just tinged with Herrmann's music - it's just a sensation.