Malarkey

I was surprised what a sound beating this film received on this site from local know-it-alls. At one point it even seemed like the ratings fell short of less than 50%, which is definitely much less than this movie deserves. Nicholas on Holiday is by all means not a bad movie. Definitely not. But it’s not the first installment in this series, and it focuses less on Nicholas and more on his parents, which is less entertaining. To perceive life with a child’s and adult eyes is very different, and combining these two perspectives is not possible. And that’s what I consider the main issue of this film. Otherwise it was fine and I chilled nicely while watching it.

Had this movie not looked so American, I might have thought I was watching a French crime film. This flick in unusually brutal and it’s made in such a brilliant way that it is a worthy competition for similar French affairs. The characters, unfortunately, are a level lower, but all in all this movie still deserves a four-star rating.

I was quite discouraged by the length of this film, but in the end I was more than pleasantly surprised by Sources of Life, which sometimes strangely and sometimes completely naturally tells the story of one family, presenting it to us in three generations. So we’ll get to see the grandpa, dad and son, with everything starting up after the end of the Second World War. Thanks to that, I really liked the fact that the film was not afraid to present the mood of that time in the form of not very pleasant characters who, even when the war was over, failed to understand that Hitler was a monster. There were some weaker moments, true, but I can easily forgive that. The movie still commanded my attention for three hours with its exhaustive story in such a way that I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It’s a testament of the period told in the form of a story of one ordinarily extraordinary family.

I was surprised that Cindy wasn’t an alcoholic. If she had been, this movie would’ve been a story of the worst parent ever. Even as it was, she was close to being awarded this title. An unorthodox American redneck comedy, which didn’t make me laugh much but at least possessed something that made me finish watching it.

Imagine a movie that takes place in a car and it has a single character whom you watch for the entire hour and a half. I can’t help but be happy with the result, because Tom Hardy delivered a great performance. Steven Knight, in turn, did a great job directing this movie so I was on tenterhooks the entire time, bating my breath and wondering how easy it is to mess up your entire life.

FINALLY! Finally, Luc Besson made me happy and once again, according to his feminist philosophy, he prepared a film with a female protagonist whose perfection matches the others that Luc managed to include in his films during that time. The only problem Lucy has is the fact that she has supernatural abilities, so it’s hard to compare her with Joan of Arc, Nikita or Mathilda. She has a bit of all of these characters but she remains unique. So I can’t help but feel satisfied about the kind of movies Besson keeps making to this day. I find it funny how a lot of people on this site dislikes his leaps from action scenes to explanatory or completely unrelated ones. I, on the other hand, enjoyed this very much. Besson has always been crazy in a good way.

I didn’t want to believe the ratings here, so I invested two hours of my time in a completely useless film that has everything a good film should have – music by Hans Zimmer and cast such as Farrell, Crowe or Connelly. The result, however, is unfortunately insipid and I think that the actors themselves must be ashamed of it. The classification of this as a fantasy romance is apt. It’s something like Titanic without the ship but with fantasy elements and a load of bullcrap. Simply horrible.

I really like Arcade Fire but I extremely disliked this documentary full of shots from their concerts and making of their Neon Bible album. After watching this, I played an entire concert of theirs on YouTube and I found out that it is much more valuable and telling than this documentary. Not only is Miroir Noir shrouded in an absolutely dumb filter, it also says next to nothing about the band. It’s all wannabe artsy, with only a scarce amount of real concert shots. It is fortunately somewhat salvaged by several good ideas, for example that of the band playing the title track in an elevator. Had it not been for the great music, however, I wouldn’t have watched this till the end. In other words, I completely agree with user Dadel’s review.

This movie is rumored to be one of the most successful films made in France this year. And it is no wonder. Firstly, it’s a comedy and almost everybody likes those, and secondly it’s leaning brutally (and in a rather xenophobic way) into almost all minorities who keep immigrating into France and with which France has a lot of trouble these days. But for the real xenophobes on this site I must say that everybody in this movie was very likable (especially the daughters whom I simply wanted to kiss) so I was able to enjoy this film to the fullest. I’m giving the fifth star for Christian Clavier, who portrays an absolutely perfect character of the father who is unable to welcome any Asians, Blacks, Arabs or Jews in his family. Well, he got really lucky with his sons in law.

This film delivers heavy philosophizing, interesting environment and Jack Nicholson in his classically disheveled form, not unlike that in Shining. I don’t think I need to add anything more, only that sometimes the pace was too slow.