Category: *.AVI

Visually very impressive, and not pulling punches until the last half, at least.
It’s not a movie about church, though. Or, putting it another way, it’s the worst when it tries to be about church. But it’s a brilliant movie about management. How your organisation starts crumbling once you rely on a combination of verbal agreements and informal decisions most people are either unaware of or don’t see the sense behind.

Not the movie I expected. It is confusing at first, with sudden time jumps that are hard to follow, and the storytelling feels rushed, despite the movie is some 2:30 hours long. But it becomes more interesting as you begin to notice discrepancies between depictions of same events from different character perspective.

The movie dedicates a lot of attention to the role of woman in the 14th century. A woman cannot appeal to court without her husband’s approval. Rape is not offence against the woman, but agains her husband. And, of course, sentence for a woman who wrongly accuses someone of rape is to be burned at a stake.
The duel is indeed impressive. It’s chaotic and brutal. A horse can run into a wall or trample a squire or hit you with its hoove. And they use “halfsword” grip a lot, because they are so close. All this from almost static camera.

And it surprised me that they didn’t chew on the implications of mother’s role in the events at all, leaving it all to be deduced.

Some good actors (Florence Pugh, the guy from Dungeons&Dragons, Stannis Baratheon) and surprising attention to historic accuracy (William Wallace wasn’t a pict, and they weren’t wearing only browns in Medieval times). But I can’t help but feel that it should have been a miniseries, due to the density of events. Robert’s loses most of his army, his wife is taken hostage and two of his brothers killed in span of 20 minutes. And those two brothers are half the way across Scotland!
The most ridiculous scene, when Robert stabs his competitor in the church is historically accurate.

Honestly surprised they managed to pull the final battle. Very impressed.

“The Bear” changed cinema. “Saturday Night Live” tries to recreate the same frantic athmosphere, minute by minute: the movie is 90 minutes in length, and starts 90 minutes before the show goes live on TV.
I feel like it requires too much prior knowledge. Am I supposed to know all those comedians that they mention? John Bellucci? Chevy Chase? Billy Preston? Because I don’t.
One bit I didn’t get is why they used Nicholas Braun (Succession) for two characters. One of them is some strange Italian, and another a muppeteer if that’s the name. It doesn’t seem like any other characters acknowledges it’s the same person. The one I actually knew was Dan Aykroyd, Ray from Ghostbusters. And I actually did see Chevy Chase in “Memoirs of an Invisible Man”.
After reading some more, I discovered that some of the cast died before they hit 40, either from overdose or cancer. And most of them left the show after 4-5 years.
I can’t deny it’s a good movie. The allegories with putting bricks is brilliant: just like putting a show together. Also, the actors they choose represent their real-life counterparts extremely well.
But I’m not sure it’s a movie anyone should go to theaters for.

I didn’t watch The Batman with Pattinson. Not a fan of DC or the Batman universe. But after The North Water, I decided to see Colin Farrell play another villain—and I’m glad I did.

The only connection to Batman is some names: Gotham, Arkham, Oswald Cobblepot. Batman himself is literally mentioned twice: at the very start of the first episode and at the very end of the last one. Everything else is a crime drama.

I almost want to say they pulled a bait-and-switch, like Mad Max: Fury Road, which wasn’t really about Mad Max but about Furiosa. But they didn’t. It’s just that Sofia Falcone is very fleshed out here. But so is Penguin. They toe a fine line, without making it a story about a “Girl-Boss” who was told all her life what to do, betrayed by those Evil White Men, and now she will crush them… No, it’s not that kind of story.

I also almost want to say they just repeated what Joker did—creating an ultra-realistic villain attached to his mother. But that’s incorrect too. Phoenix’s Joker wasn’t a villain at all; he was an anti-villain, in the way there are anti-heroes. While Farrell’s Penguin is a full-fledged villain.

The main theme for me in Penguin is the theme of lies. Cobblepot is an absolute liar, as demonstrated in the very first episode when he’s tortured by Sofia, and again in the very last, where she tortures him once more. He never tells the truth, never admits it—he always doubles down. There’s a lot of defiance of expectations throughout. And it’s not just Penguin; his mother plays into this as well. What actually convinced me to keep watching was Deirdre O’Connell in the first episode—that switch between a somewhat lost old woman with dementia and a vicious, megalomaniacal force.

And going back to lies—the biggest lie we tell ourselves is probably that what we do is to make our parents proud.

Visually, it’s so stunning I can hardly believe it’s a TV series. They did borrow a bit from Fallout, with ultraviolence set to jazz songs, but they have their own style too. Probably the scene that impressed me the most was the “vote of confidence” using cheap beer cans. But really, there was so much to unpack. Like the mundainess of Penguin’s violence.

All I can say is—my faith in TV series has returned. For now.

John Wick has changed action movies for good.

This is “John Wick” Indian style. The rolls, use of environment as weapons, like hitting with a tray, and all the other tricks.

It’s magical, the amout of abuse hero can withstain, but also realistic, exemplified with the attempt to jump through a window “movie style”. Trying to tie it all together into a Hanuman myth was a good option.

I’m not sure how the second half of the movie works, though, as I don’t believe repicursiosn for the transgender community in India is on everyone’s mind. And using fireworks as weapons perhaps not the most efficient, when you have guns? But it’s good visuals for sure.

I’m surprised we are still able to produce good animation, and not just trash. But Migration is very impressive. The herons, the pigeons, the Jamaican parrot. I mean, I didn’t even know we are allowed to do accents anymore, when everything is offensive.

The tricks are mostly classic, villain looking over one side of the column, heroes hiding over the other. But then, there are surprising animation twists borrowing from Nickelodeon (the pleeeeeeease, for example).

It’s Inglorious Bastards all over again, but it isn’t a bad thing. We have characters switching between English and German on the go, and an educated villain played by Til Sweiger instead of Christoph Waltz.
You can also view it as a James Bond movie, with cool characters shooting from the hip while cracking jokes.
The most interesting bit is that the craziest parts are actually true. An SOE agent did set up a party on Fernando Po to lure Italian and German officers away. And the crew did employ locals to steal the boats, and did blow the anchor chain with explosives. Only all the killing didn’t happen.
The saddest part is that in real life, no participant of that operation survived until the end of the war. Henry Cavils character, Gus, died on the very next mission, while his team got lost in France and bumped into a patrol. And Anders was killed in ’45, storming an Italian bunker line.

John Wick has reinvigorated cinema. This is just one example.
Charlize Theron has this amazing confidence of not being afraid of being shown “ugly”.

The music, set pieces, the motives of ice and mirrors, it all fits really well. Enjoyed every moment, except the French actress, which was kind of meh.