My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny; legal comedy, USA, 1992; D: Jonathan Lynn, S: Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Fred Gwynne, Ralph Macchio, Mitchell Whitfield

Youngters Bill and Stan accidentally forget to pay for a fish can in Bill's pocket after leaving a store in Alabama. When a police car stops them, Bill immediately confesses the misdemeanour in the police station, but later on realizes the two of them were mistaken for killers and that the police think they confessed to killing the clerk in the store. Bill calls his New York cousin Vinny for help, a personal injury lawyer with no experience in homicide cases. Vinny agrees to defend them at the trial. Initially, Vinny is very clumsy, and judge Haller even fines him 200$ for contempt of court for not wearing a suit. However, thanks to his girlfriend Mona Lisa, a car expert, he manages to free Bill and Stan of all charges when a photo proves the tires of the assualt car are different than on their car, and that two different youngsters were caught in another city. 

A light comedy suitable for relaxation, "My Cousin Vinny" owes 90% of its charm to the energetic performances by Joe Pesci and Maria Tomei, without whom the movie may not have reached the threshold of a recommendation. Pesci is particularly memorable in an untypical, refreshing comic role as the title amateur lawyer who, faced with emergency, suddenly rises to the occasion and finds his great potentials. The jokes are mostly lukewarm to only moderately funny, without a single excellent one that stands out, yet due to Pesci's and Tomei's charisma these characters are so sympathetic that the viewers are willing to go along with them on the ride, even during the more boring moments. Many complimented the film for its accurate depiction of criminal procedure, here presented in an entertaining way: for instance, Vinny wants to "bond" with the district attorney in order to get a glimpse into his files for the trial, so he goes hunting with him the whole day, only for Vinny's girlfriend Mona Lisa to ridicule him later on since the prosecutor has to share vital materials and evidence with the other side according to the Disclosure of evidence clause. Vinny also seems to learn as he goes along, and adapts quickly to skilfully question witnesses and establish that their testimony cannot be taken beyond reasonable doubt. He is also funny in the sequence where Mona Lisa laments as to when they will finally get married because of her "biological clock", so she stumps her foot three times on the ground, yet Vinny replies and also stumps on the ground. More could have been made out of this concept, since several jokes are banal, yet Tomei shines in the finale when she proves to have an undisputable knowledge of cars which helps solve the case.

Grade:++

Richard III

Richard III; drama, UK, 1995; D: Richard Loncraine, S: Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Dominic West, Nigel Hawthorne, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, John Wood, Robert Downey Jr., Adrian Dunbar

England, 1 9 3 0s. A civil war wages on between the house of York and Lancester. A tank crashes into the mansion of King Henry VI and his son Edward, and they are killed by Field Marshal Richard, Duke of Gloucester. At first, Richard's brother Edward York becomes the new King, but Richard wants the crown for himself. During several months, he has all his relatives killed in mysterious circumstances: Edward; brother Clarence; Rivers, the Queen's brother; Lord Hastings. This paves the way for him remaining the only candidate next in line, and is thus crowned as the new King. Richard intends to marry Queen Elizabeth. His henchman Tyrrel also executes the Duke of Buckingham, who was loyal to Richard but was impatient about his rewards for support. In the battlefield, the Lancester-led army prevails. Richard flees on top of a building where he is confronted by Lancester heir and rival Henry Richmond. Richard jumps from the building into suicide.

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, Richard Loncraine's "Richard III" is besides Olivier's '55 film the most successful adaptation of William Shakespeare's eponymous play. Even though the play was written in 1594, and probably influenced by various bloody power schemes and "games of thrones" of the Byzantine Empire, "Richard III" proved surprisingly relevant even centuries afterwards—the villainous nature of the power-hungry Richard III was sensed from Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar up to Stalin. Shakespeare's dialogues are somehow never quite suitable for cinema since they are often ponderous and archaic, and thus never feel like genuine dialogues between people, yet his themes and observations about human nature are timeless, such as it is the case here: "Richard III" is a giant meditation on how power corrupts, how absolute power corrupts absolutely—and how those who seek it absolutely are ethically bankrupt absolutely.

The title antagonist simply kills almost anyone to eliminate any competition for the crown, until he becomes King. The message is chilling—in such a system of hierarchy of violence, the rulers on top are the most ruthless criminals. The sequence where Richard enjoys his corronation, accompanied by Charpentier's song "Te Deum", stays subconsciously in your head. Transported in an alternate history England of the first half of the 20th century, the movie works mostly thanks to sharp dialogues and monologues, as theatrical as they may sound. In one sequence, as Richard is scheming to eliminate Clarence, he goes: "Simple, plain Clarence! I do love you so, that I shall shortly send your soul to heaven. If heaven will take the present from my hands". With that hump and a paralyzed left hand, Richard is an unlikely leader, yet he sets everything in motion to get a hold of power, one step at a time: in one scene, he sweet talks to someone, only to already plan his murder behind his back. He is thus accosted for his hypocrisy, from Queen Elizabeth ("I have no more sons of the royal blood for you to slaughter") to the Duchess of York ("Oh, hear me a little, for I shall never speak to you again!"). These lines are simply clever, wise or sharp ("Shall I be tempted by the devil thus?" - "Yes, if the devil tempt you to do good." / "And where's your conscience now?" - "In the Duke of Gloucester's purse"). The title anti-hero is played brilliantly by the excellent Ian McKellen, who gave one of his career best performances, and who feels like he could hardly wait to sink his teeth into this classic material. 

Grade:+++

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; tragicomedy, USA, 2015; D: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, S: Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, Nick Offerman, Katherine C. Hughes, Jon Bernthal, Molly Shannon, Connie Britton

Pittsburgh. Teenagers Greg and Earl go through life in a daily routine, all until Greg's mom informs him that his high school acquaintance Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia. When his mom persuades him to spend some time with Rachel, Greg reluctantly agrees, but gradually begins to like hanging out with Rachel. Since Greg and Earl made over forty short films spoofing film classics, Rachel's friend Madison talks them into making a movie about Rachel. Rachel is diagnosed with cancer, but refuses further chemotherapy after she loses her hair and feels even worse. Greg and Earl fight and separate. On prom night, Greg drives to the hospital to show Rachel the movie he completed for her, but during the screening she falls into a coma and dies. Later, Greg finds out Rachel wrote a letter to a college to try to persuade them to accept Greg as their student.

Excellent drama-comedy "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is all the more wonderful and humorous considering its depressive subject. And yet, such a depressive subject would have probably fallen into intolerable melodrama hadn't it been presented in a humorous way like this. The film tackles that unpleasant topic many people will experience at least once in their lifetime—that feeling of helplessness and despair when a person they know is slowly dying from a terminal illness—yet screenwriter Jesse Andrews and director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon craft such a wild concoction of positive energy through wacky jokes, director's intervention or comical dialogues that it all gradually becomes a celebration of life. Its quirky style reminds initially of W. Anderson, yet it slowly becomes much more humane and character-driven. The whole film is filled with an endless amount of creative ideas and dialogues. In one sequence in high school, for instance, Rachel is comforted by her friends when she receives test results for her illness, yet Greg, passing by, just hears the word "test" and nonchalantly says: "Tests? I've been there!", and after realizing what the context was, he later remorsely says to himself: "I'm like innovatively stupid." 

While trying to cheer Rachel up in her room, Greg feigns how to get out of boring conversations with people by playing dead, yet then he looks at a poster of Wolverine hanging on her wall and imagines hearing the voice from said poster accosting him for inappropriate behavior towards a cancer patient. Greg often breaks the fourth wall, whether it is random observations about life ("Hot girls destroy your life") or him acting like a narrator ("So, we're pretty far into this stupid story now and you're probably saying to yourself, "Hey. I like this girl Rachel. And I'm gonna be pissed off if she dies at the end."). Every now and then, the most ridiculous jokes will pop-up in the story, such as the random one where Greg's dad, obviously a "pothead", goes into a monologue about his experience with half a dozen people lost in the Amazon, adding at the end: "Did you know you could smoke a hornet?" Such a wildly hilarious outburst of clever zaniness is typical for this independent cult 'slice-of-life' film. The only flaw are the last 20 minutes when the movie enters a wrong turn and does some things in a questionable manner: Rachel and Earl warranted more screen time, and it was a pity we didn't find out even more about their personalities. The similar "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" focused more on the girl in question. They both just suddenly disappear in the end. Greg is depicted in a surprisingly realistic way: he does several mistakes and is clumsy when articulating emotions, just like most teenagers, yet in the end he eventually does the right thing. A small bonus are the wacky short films Greg and Earl made, with a wide range of titles that spoof classics, such as "Pooping Tom", "A Sockwork Orange", "Raging Bullshit" and "Gone with My Wind". Greg's short movie isn't the ultimate tribute to Rachel; this whole movie is.

Grade:+++

The Sixth Bus

Šesti autobus; war drama, Croatia, 2022; D: Eduard Galić, S: Zala Đurić, Marko Petrić, Toni Gojanović, Muhamed Hadžović, Josip Ledina, Filip Mayer, Andrej Dojkić, Ermin Sijamija, Maša Đorđević, Matija Prskalo, Josipa Anković

Belgrade, 2 0 0 8. An American-Croatian reporter, Olivia, arrives to cover the trial of Serb soldiers who perpetrated the Vukovar massacre during the Croatian War of Independence. She specifically inquires about the sixth bus with 60 captured Croatian soldiers that disappeared. However, the locals are reluctant to tell her any details. She goes to Vukovar and befriends Josip who remembers the dark times of the Battle of Vukovar, when Croat and Serb friends split over whether to defend the city or to attack it with the Serb paramilitary. Sveto, a local Serb, was spared by a Croat friend who became a Croatian soldier. After the capture of the Croatian soldiers, Sveto managed to save him and release him to escape. Back in the present, Olivia admits to Josip that she witnessed the war when she was a little girl in Vukovar.

The director Eduard Galic gained interest about the Battle of Vukovar during his documentary series "Heroes of Vukovar", where he interviewed the surviving Croatian soldiers of said battle, which gave him a certain credit to try to make a feature length film about that rarely talked about event of the Croatian War (it was quickly overshadowed in the news by the outbreak of the even bloodier Bosnian War). While the limited budget constraints war movies, since elaborated pyrotechnics are needed to conjure up the intensity and destruction of war battles, "The Sixth Bus" managed to still deliver a solid depiction of it. Its story is divided in two parts: one plays out in 2 0 0 8, where the American-Croatian reporter Olivia (very good Zala Djuric) tries to uncover what happened to said bus; while the other story plays out during the sole Battle of Vukovar in a flashback, and is filmed in "washed out" colors, "Saving Private Ryan"-style. At times, the dialogue in the modern story tend to sound too artificial and fake, yet the sequences of the battle in the flashback story have suspense and dark moments. One of those memorable moments include a French volunteer for the Croatian Army, who taunts Serb soldiers over a walkie-talkie, jokingly calling their country "petit Serbia". Croatian soldiers fire anti-tank missiles at tanks driving through the Vukovar streets, and when a granade falls down into their basement, one soldier kicks it away as far as possible before the explosion. The scenes involving Croatian POW who exit a bus and have to endure when two rows of Serb paramilitary beating them with clubs is very bitter. Despite the fact that the Battle of Vukovar had many more stories to be told on the big screen, but the authors didn't have enough money to stage them all, "The Sixth Bus" is an honest little film that at least recorded some of its moments in cinema.

Grade:++

Manila in the Claws of Light

Maynila, sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag; drama, Philippines, 1975; D: Lino Brocka, S: Bembol Roco, Lou Salvador Jr., Tommy Abuel, Hilda Koronel, Tommy Yap

Manila. Fisherman Julio arrives to the capital and finds a job as a construction worker at a building. He befriends co-worker Atong and realizes that the workers are exploited by the boss, who withholds a part of their salary until he can find enough funds, in a scheme called "Taiwan". Julio is actually searching for a woman from his village, Ligaya, who was recruited by Mrs. Cruz to work in Manila, but who has since mysteriously vanished. After he gets fired from work, Julio spends the night on the open, where he is recruited by a male prostitute who initiates him to do this job. By following Mrs. Cruz, Julio finds Ligaya in a church. Julio and Ligaya land in bed, and she admits that she works as a prostitute, and that her pimp is Chinese Ah-Tek, but that she cannot leave because of her baby. Julio persuades her to meet him later to escape. However, he reads in a newspaper Ligaya allegedly fell down stairs and died. Julio goes to Ah-Tek's apartment and stabs him to death. He is chased by a mob and attacked in an alley.

The only Filipino film included in the book "1001 Movies You Must See" by Steven Jay Schneider, "Manila in the Claws of Light" is a dark and sober social drama that ostensibly talks about the hero's search in Manila for the woman who disappeared from his village, yet along the way it also depicts a wide array of socialist criticism against work exploitation and the plight of lower class in the country at that time. For instance, already in the opening act (which switches from black and white to color the minute the protagonist Julio appears on screen), Julio finds work for 2.50 peso, yet is coerced into signing a misleading contract that feigns it is paying him 4 peso, more than he is actually getting. Prostitution plays a major role in the story, implying that people have to "sell out" completely to finance a living. The director Lino Brocka crafts the movie surprisingly fluent, including association flashbacks of Julio imagining Ligaya walking on the beach, to symbolize his yearning for her and nostalgia for a better past, and adding allegory, such as during the sequence of the visit to the slums of Manila, where Pol spots three kids happily playing in the sea, just to comment how they will soon grow up and experience how harsh life is, which can be applied as a foreshadowing of the fates of the three characters of Julio, Ligaya and Atong. However, the movie is still a tad too conventional, routine and grey, failing to truly become outstanding in any other field besides the depressive mood. It all ends in a perdictable tragedy, yet it is all effective and humane in its essence.

Grade:++

Zwei Nasen tanken Super

Zwei Nasen tanken Super; comedy, Germany, 1984; D: Dieter Pröttel, S: Thomas Gottschalk, Mike Krüger, Simone Brahmann, Sonja Tuchmann, András Fricsay

Gangsters disguised as janitors rob diamonds from a museum and hide them in a motorized tricycle. However, two tricycles are given to Tommy and Mike as a reward for being the 100,000th costumers at a car fair. Tommy and Mike thus decide to travel south for a vacation, and pick up two hitchhikers: nurse Birgit and circus artist Farah. They are followed by the gangsters who assault Tommy and Mike, but then find out they gave the diamonds to Birgit and Farah, so they go back to retrieve them. They get one diamond from Birgit in the hospital, and then go to a circus to visit Farah. The gangsters attack them there, but get arrested by the police. Tommy and Mike are pleased, but then an elephant takes the diamond and eats it, so they go around after it, waiting for it to defecate it back.

The sequel to the, for some reason, popular hit comedy "Die Supernasen" ("Super Noses") proved even more successful when it sold over 6,000,000 tickets at the German box office, yet it is still unsuccessful as a movie on its own, turning essentially into a weak comedy in which nobody wanted to invest a little more effort in conjurng up better jokes. "Zwei Nases tanken Super" ("Two Noses refuel Super") has a few good gags in the opening act: it is, for instance, amusing how the gangsters managed to perpetrate the heist in the museum (they disguised themselves as janitors, made a hole in the glass and then just used the vacuum cleaner to suck the diamonds in); the first introduction of the two protagonists, Tommy and Mike, has charm, since Mike needs to urinate outside, but wherever he goes, he has no privacy (he goes to a bush, but a bum emerges and asks him not to disturb him; he goes to a wall, but an old lady is angrily observing him through the window; so he finally decides to enter a fair, jumping across a long line to buy a ticket, where they both win a prize); whereas the sequence where the four passengers randmoly stop their tricycles at a meadow at night and go to sleep inside a tent, but then wake up in the morning and realize they camped in the middle of a grass field on a football stadium, is funny. Sadly, after 30 minutes, the movie runs out of jokes, and all we are left with are a boring hour of nothing, of a tiresome plot where the gangsters chase the heroes. Not one of the three locations they go through (hospital, art gallery, circus) offer any inspiration for the writers to place them in any amusing situation. It is almost as if the producers had an outline for the plot (gangsters chase the heroes to get diamonds) and sent a memo to the writers: "Write some jokes in between these chases". But the writers didn't get the memo. The only reason to see the film is Simone Brahmann, who later gained fame as a great German voice actress.

Grade:+

Supercool

Supercool; comedy, Canada / Finland / USA, 2021, D: Teppo Airaksinen, S: Jake Short, Miles J. Harvey, Damon Wayans Jr., Madison Davenport, Odessa A'zion, Iliza Shlesinger, Peter Moses, Kira Kosarin

Teenagers Neil and Gilbert are best friends, but one of the least popular guys in high school. Neil wants to ask his crush Summer out for a date, but throws up due to nervousness, ruining everything. He wishes he were cool... and the next day, he wakes up as an attractive lad. At first, Gilbert doesn't recognize him, yet is persuaded when Neil knows everything about him. Taking on the name Ace, Neil approaches Summer, who invites him to his birthday party, over at her house. Neil and Gilbert want to burrow a Porsche from a man in a suit, Jimmy, to act even more cool, but Jimmy uses them as accomplices to rob a store. Angered by this, Ace goes to the party alone, while Jimmy and Gilbert accidentally land on a gay party and are chased by cops. After he gets pushed into the pool by pranksters, Summer orders Ace to leave. Ace returns to the house, now back as Neil, and simply talks with Summer. The two like each other, and he reveals he made a comic-book about her.

Too much "Hangover", too little "(500) Days of Summer": "Supercool" is a typical example of pushing for misguided extreme comedies in a post-"Hangover" era, where instead of sophistication or inspiration the authors rely more on raunchy humor that needs to be more and more shocking. And yet, as it was established many times before, being only crazy or zany alone doesn't always have a punchline. The sad thing is that underneath all this populist garbage thrown on top of it, "Supercool" actually has a sweet and honest little story. The main idea is that the unpopular, ugly looking teenager Neil wakes up for one day as an attractive lad, and uses this as an opportunity to not be shy anymore, but to approach his crush Summer, which is reminiscent of Marshall's "Big". Sadly, the emotional moments are pushed in the background, but vulgar, gross-out humor isn't a better substitute. The moment Neil approaches Summer to ask her out in school, but is so nervous he throws up over her, the movie takes a nosedive. Here and there, a good gag shows up. For instance, while in a Uber car, Neil and Gilbert are talking, but the driver looks at Neil and asks: "Are you famous, by the way?" - "No, I'm not", replies Gilbert. "Yeah, yeah, I'm not talking to you, pal. You have the face of someone who is *not* famous." Later, the same driver drops off Neil at the house for a party, and gives him his phone number: "I talked to my girlfriend. She's down to clown around in threesome town. She said you could be the mayor!" 

Unfortunately, the remainder of the jokes fare less. A short sequence where a man has sex with his girlfriend, who is on top, and asks Neil and Gilbert to hold his hands on the left and right side of bed, is more bizarre than anything close to funny. The storyline makes a fatal mistake when it decides to focus a third of its running time on an unnecessary, lame subplot of a man in a suit, Jimmy, who uses Neil and Gilbert as accomplices to rob a store. From there on, the two friends split, and the movie wastes its time on Gilbert hanging around Jimmy's car being chased by cops, equipped with such lame jokes as when they crawl through a sewer, Jimmy holds a snake in his arm, and just as a woman aims her gun at him, Gilbert hits her behind her back, causing her to accidentally shoot and blow off the head of the snake. No scene involving Jimmy works, he is a "third wheel", when in fact the story needed more scene involving Neil and Gilbert at the party, and Neil interacting with Summer. Ironically, the movie ends there where it should have only started, namely when Neil sums up the courage to simply be himself and talk with Summer, and even helping her clean up the trash after the party. When she goes: "The sad thing is I didn't do this party for me, I did it for them!", she finally becomes a real character, and "Supercool" a real movie. If this romantic subplot were the main focus, with normal, quality dialogue, this would have been a much better movie. The great Kira Kosarin has a small supporting role as Summer's friend, Ava, and is much more effective than the majority of the cast.

Grade:+

Dragonslayer

Dragonslayer; fantasy, USA, 1982; D: Matthew Robbins, S: Peter MacNicol, Caitlin Clarke, John Hallam, Peter Eyre, Sydney Bromley, Chloe Salaman, Ralph Richardson, Ian McDiarmid

Galen is an apprentice of wizard Ulrich. One day, an expedition led by Valerian and Tyrion asks Ulrich to help them get rid of a dragon that has been terrorizing their land for a long time. Upon demanding proof of his magical powers, Ulrich asks Tyrion to stab him with a dagger in the heart. Tyrion obliges, and Ulrich dies. The expedition leaves, but Galen follows them, taking a magical amulet with him. He finds out Valerian is actually a woman, hiding her gender since the King of the land ordered that women be tied to a pole and sacrifised to the dragon to appease him. The amulet is able to cause a landslide of dragon's cave, but the people are shocked when the dragon turns out to be alive. Using a huge spear, Galen goes to the cave and wounds the dragon. After throwing Ulrich's ashes in he burning water, Ulrich is resurrected, is able to trick the dragon into grabbing him, but then explodes after Galen smashes the amulet, thereby causing the dragon to die. 

"Dragonslayer" is a dark fantasy that is almost a dragon-version of "The Seven Samurai", except that in this case only the apprentice Galen (comedian Peter MacNicol in a serious edition) travels to a village to save it from the villain—in this case, the mythological giant lizard. This movie is a very straightforward affair, sometimes even a bit too much, since it is at times too monolithic and grey, while one wishes it had a higher amplitude of range, such as more ingenuity or versatility. The characters are all one-dimensional, yet the narrative is very concise and well made, creating a dirty and realistic environment inside this fantasy world. Some situations are grim, such as the one where the kingdom has a tradition of sacrificing women to the dragon by chaining their hands to a pole, so one unlucky one manages to squeeze her hands out of the chain bracelets, yet it causes her wrists to be all bloody and damaged. Having the wizard Ulrich disappear from the story already in the opening act was a weird choice, though that gave Galen a chance to prove himself as the new hero. The main attraction are definitely the outstanding special effects, featuring a great example of a stop-motion dragon—the highlight appears 80 minutes into the film, when Galen enters the cave and the camera pans to the right to reveal a whole catacomb with a lake on fire. Galen first spots the dragon's head as a reflection in the water, and then goes out to fight it with a spear, creating a wonderful suspense rush. These painstaking visual effects of the dragon, fleeting as they may be, compensate for the other parts in the film.

Grade:++

Veronika Voss

Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss; drama, Germany, 1982, D: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, S: Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, Cornelia Froboess, Annemarie Duringer, Armin Mueller-Stahl  

Munich, 1 9 5 0s. While watching herself in a World War II film in a cinema theater, forgotten actress Veronika Voss leaves and starts crying outside in the rain. A reporter, Robert, offers her an umbrella, and they go on a dinner. Upon finding out Veronika is famous by his press colleague Henriette, Robert starts investigating and finds out Veronika lives in a clinic as a patient of neurologist Dr. Katz who controls her through Veronika’s drug addiction. Veronika gets a small role in a film, but is unable to remember her two lines, and collapses from a nervous breakdown. Dr. Katz persuades Veronika to leave all her estate to Dr. Katz, after which Veronika dies from an overdose of sleeping pills, locked inside her room. Robert cannot prove anything and just leaves the building.  

Included in Roger Ebert’s list of Great Movies, the penultimate film by director Reiner Werner Fassbinder before his too early and tragic death, "Veronika Voss" is a darker version of "Sunset Blvd.", depiciting an aging actress suffering from the fact that she passed her prime, unfolding almost as a suicide in slow motion. As is often the case in his movies, Fassbinder overemphasizes the melodramatic aspects of the story a bit too much, but he manages to "expand" the soap opera storyline thanks to several cinematic techniques, dialogue and directorial interventions, upgrading the film into something more. In the opening scenes, the title protagonist Veronika is in the cinema, watching an old World War II film she starred in, in which she plays a role of a drug addicted patient who is controlled and eliminated by a nurse with a syringe, eerily foreshadowing the ending of this film and her own fate. In a further metafilm touch, a short behind-the-scenes flashback appears, depicting Veronika while making this film and embracing her husband-screenwriter, explaining to the director: "You don't understand. It's not only his screenplay, it's also his love that gives me strength". 

Returning to the present time of her decay, in which Fassbinder almost gives an allegorical commentary on Germany in disarray as a whole after World War II, Veronika meets a reporter, Robert, who doesn't know how she is. Later, back in his apartment, he gets a phone call picked up by his girlfriend (!) Henrietta, who doesn't seem to mind he sees other women as well, and informs him Veronika invited him for a date. Henrietta just tells Robert: "I guess she doesn't know you, either. She said you were a charming man." Robert, as a symbol for the viewers, begins to naturally explore more and more, and thus the movie reveals several layers in Veronika's life. In another good line, Veronika goes: "When an actress plays a woman who wants to please a man, she tries to be all the women in the world rolled into one". Around 67 minutes into the film, there is a great stylistic scene of a film set, in which the camera is behind a movie camera and a director is slowly approaching Veronika on a camera dolly, but as the movie camera stops, the camera even continues approaching Veronika further, beyond the film director, signalling the intention of a film-within-a-film. Not all the ingredients in the film work, though. Some are of lesser quality. For instance, Robert is a too passive character, whereas the ending is simply too rushed, without elaborating more to give weight of what just happened: instead, the tragedy happens too fast and too fleeting, it's almost in the vein of "blink and you'll miss it", as if a scene is missing. Yet, considering Fassbinder's fate was very similar to Voss' own tragedy, the movie seems almost prophetic. 

Grade:+++

The Piano Teacher

La Pianiste; erotic psychological drama, France, 2001; D: Michael Haneke, S: Isabelle Huppert, Benoît Magimel, Annie Girardot, Susanne Lothar, Udo Samel, Anna Sigalevitch

Erika is a piano teacher. She is secluded, living a quiet life and sharing her apartment with her mother. However, ocassionally she disppears late at night to watch porn at various erotic stores. She gets a new student, Walter, in his 20s, who plays Schubert and wants to apply to the conservatory. Erika is against it. One day, she breaks a glass bottle and leaves it in the pocket of another student, Anna, whose right hand is thus injured. Realizing Erika was jealous at Anna because of him, Walter embraces Erika in the public toilet, where she masturbates him, but forbids him from touching her. She writes a letter to him, demanding that he tie her up and beat her in her room, while her mother is in the next room. Walter is disgusted by the letter, refuses it and leaves. Later, he arrives at her flat and slaps her. Before the start of a concert, Erika injures her shoulder with a knife in the lobby, and exits the building.

"The Piano Teacher" is a nerve-wretching psychological drama about sexual perversion caused by a person prevented from expressing her sexuality for a long time, and builds its unease from a peculiar blend of static long shots and uncomfortable anticipation, yet it once again shows that the director Michael Haneke is not able to properly end his stories. The film starts off as a boring music drama, featuring long sequences of the protagonist, Erika (excellent Isabelle Huppert), teaching students how to play a piano, all until it is shown how she secretly enjoys going to an erotic store to view porn there. She has a need for some wild passion, some exciting outburst in her sterile and boring life surrounded by classical music. In the second half of the film, Walter, a student in his 20s, finally realizes she is attracted to him, leading to a bizarre encounter in the public toilet: she unzipps his pants and starts masturbating him, but forbids him to touch her. She starts giving him a blow job, but then stops, ostensibly because he refuses her rules, but it seems she is never able to simply accept normal sexuality, and always has to stage some deviations to make it untypical. Instead of exploring this issue, the movie quickly drops it, as not much insight is given into Erika's mind. In one scene, while both are in their beds, Erika suddenly jumps on her mother and starts kissing her in the mouth, holding her arms, again demonstrating her misplaced urges, her inability to articulate her sexuality at the right place, the right person. We never see neither Erika nor Walter naked. They have only one sex scene in her apartment, wearing clothes. We are never shown what caused this sadomasochistic behavior in Erika (her letter with her wishes is disturbing), which is a pity. These movies stand or fall during their endings, which could give a great conclusion that sums everything down to a T. Unfortunately, the ending here is a cop-out, and thus feels incomplete and unfinished. Haneke is an artistic director, yet here he needed a better point at the end.

Grade:++

Seinfeld (Season 5)

Seinfeld; comedy series, USA, 1994, D: Tom Cherones, S: Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, Wayne Knight, Jerry Stiller, Estelle Harris, Marlee Matlin, Courteney Cox

New York. After Elaine tells him she faked all her orgasms during their relationship, Jerry asks her to give him another try... George is approached to be a hand model... Elaine is annoyed that her new boyfriend has the same name as a serial killer, so she wants to change his name... Jerry dates a deaf woman, Laura, who can read lips from other people... George decides to convert to the Latvian Orthodox church for his Latvian girlfriend... George is annoyed that he has nothing to talk about with his new girlfriend Daphne... Elaine spots a mannequin that looks exactly like her... Jerry is accosted for kissing his girlfriend during the entire screening of "Schindler's List"... Feeling each instinct he had was wrong, George decides to do everything the opposite he would usually do...  

Season 5 of “Seinfeld” is, together with season 4, definitely ‘peak Seinfeld’, marking an era when comedian Jerry Seinfeld could touch whatever he wanted and make it funny, crafting a hugely inspired set of episodes that exploits all their comedy potentials to the maximum. It's not that these episodes do not consist out of trivial observations; rather, the authors managed to make them appear consequential. These are small 'slice-of-life' humorous vignettes, yet they were restructured and reassessed to make them look funnier and more engaging than some epic "high stakes" stories. There is no story or character arc—the stories in episodes are so random that the viewers could watch them randomly and not miss a thing, and all the characters always stay the same, including the legendary George Costanza (excellent Jason Alexander) who is a slob and remains a slob, refusing to learn any new lessons—yet so many moments ring so true that the viewers can easily identify with them. Some jokes are simply hilarious: for instance, in episode 5.6, during a live broadcast of a tennis match, the camera randomly zooms in on George in the audience who is all besmirched across his face from eating a sundae, and the TV commentators randomly poke fun at him: “Hey buddy, there’s this new invention. It’s called the napkin.”

In 5.11, George decides to convert to Latvian orthodox church for his Latvian girlfriend, but, naturally, his parents accost him for it, claiming that this is how "sects lure people" into their membership, whereas many can identify with episode 5.12 in which Elaine is in a pinch in the public toilet, and asks a neighboring woman if she can borrow "at least three squares of toilet paper", but said woman refuses: later, in a typical "Rashomon" moment, both women lament to Jerry, Elaine claiming that a selfish woman wouldn't share, and the woman that Elaine was intruding on her privacy, which is a great satirical jab at "both sides are the same". Michael Richards is again overacting as Kramer, since his sudden "jolts" feel like forced humor (except in episode 5.4, where he somehow manages the trick of drinking beer while still holding a cigarette in his mouth), yet the remaining three characters have pleanty of scenes that spotlight their talent, from George's lines (“You’re giving me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ routine? I invented the ‘it’s not you, it’s me!”) up to Jerry's stand-up comedy lines (“We never should have landed a man on the Moon. It’s a mistake. Now everything is compared to that one accomplishment. Now we go: I can’t believe we landed a man on the Moon, and taste my coffee!”). Despite a weak start, the episodes just get better and better, as one gets used to their frequency of humor, reaching a momentum in at least three episodes that are simply perfect: "The Marine Biologist", "The Raincoats" and "The Opposite". In the "Biologist" episode, Jerry lies to a woman from high school that George is now a marine biologist, she agrees to go on a date with him, so George goes into full "bullshit" mode when they walk on the beach: "Then, of course, with evolution the octopuss lost the nostrils and took on a more familiar look we know today. But if you still look closely, you can see a little bump where the nose used to be..." "Raincoats" are a stunning two-part episode with endless highlights, but one must single out Judge Reinhold as Aaron the "close talker". Finally, in "The Opposite" George decides to do everything the opposite of what he would usually do, and unexpectedly experiences a perfect day where he practically becomes a "Superman", in an episode so magnificent, so brilliant, so genius and so legendary that it echoes to this day.

Grade:+++

Pixote

Pixote; drama, Brazil, 1980; D: Héctor Babenco, S: Fernando Ramos da Silva, Jorge Julião, Gilberto Moura, Edilson Lino, Zenildo Oliveira Santos, Claudio Bernardo

São Paulo. Dozen of homeless juvenile delinquents are brought from the street to a police station, and then transferred to a reformatory for boys. Among them is orphan Pixote (10). Two troublemakers are escorted out of a van and shot by the guards on the field during a night. When a boy dies from abuse, the manager of the reformatory frames Garatao for the crime, who is later found dead. Pixote sets his mattress on fire, thereby causing an evacuation of the reformatory. He and his friends then escape through the window of the medical room. Pixote, transvestite Lilica, Chico and Dito go to Rio de Janeiro to try to sell drugs, but a showgirl, Debora, swindles them and doesn't return with the money. The boys then team up with prostitute Sueli, robbing her clients in the room, until an American fights back, which causes Pixote to shoot both him and Dito. Sueli then throws Pixote out back on the street.

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, who rightfully compared it to Italian neorealism due to its naturalistic depiction of poverty, Hector Babenco's "Pixote" is a depressive, bleak, dark, dirty and sober essay on the lowest possible outcomes in life. The viewers cannot but feel deep sadness for the characters when they go through some of the worst situations that can happen in a human existence. The whole movie is one giant dead-end from which there is no escape. "Pixote" abounds with shocking moments: already on the first night in the reformatory, orphan Pixote witnesses an anal rape of a boy in bed by local bullies. Later on, the manager of the reformatory just shouts in front of the boys: "If you want to kill each other, do it outside, not in here!" During lunch time, a bully spits in Pixote's cup of milk and orders him to drink it. Pixote witnesses how the guards shoot two boys out in the open, in a well directed scene of two flash lamps going left and right while searching for them in the dark night.

In the second half of the film, once out of the reformatory, the kids shuffle pedestrians on the street, steal their purse and run away. On the toilet, a prostitute, Sueli, tells Pixote that a bunch of meat in a bucket is her aborted fetus. "Pixote" isn't for everyone's taste. It is so unpleasant, vile and unbearable that at one point one is not so sure anymore if all those dark scenes are actually good, but Babenco always avoids exploitation and sensationalism, and instead presents everything in a sincere, albeit resentful manner. An additional bitter detail is that the main protagonist, Fernando Ramos da Silva, indeed returned back to the streets and died when he was 17. Babenco presents these episodic scenes in quiet misery, as a neutral observer who records what life was back in his time for the future generations to see. Certainly, there are social issues here (homeless people, street gangs, unwanted kids...), but "Pixote" refuses to make these themes the main highlight, and instead focuses on its characters, who do the most random things because they are lost in this confused world. This leads to one of the most bizarre moments in 80s cinema, when the 10-year old Pixote is comforted by the prostitute Sueli who allows him to suck her breast in bed, only to later push him away and shout how she hates kids, summing up the movie in a nutshell.

Grade:+++

One Piece: Red

One Piece: Red; animated fantasy action, Japan, 2022; D: Goro Taniguchi, S: Mayumi Tanaka, Kaori Nazuka, Shuichi Ikeda, Kazuya Nakai, Akemi Okamura, Kappei Yamaguchi 

Luffy and his pirate friends—Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji and others—arrive at the island Elegia to attend a concert of the new singing star Uta. Luffy recognizes her as the girl he met 12 years ago, when she was adopted by pirate leader Shanks, but who left her at Elegia so that she can make a music career. Uta ate the magical fruit and obtained powers which allow for her singing to place people into a dream, as she intends to make the world full of happiness. When Luffy’s team declines to stay, she captures them with her magical powers. Demon entity Tot Musica appears in both worlds, so Luffy’s team beats him in both the dream world and reality, returning people back from the dream state, while Uta and Shanks reconcile.

Made as a commemoration of sorts for the 1,000th episode of the neverending anime series “One Piece”, the 15th “One Piece” anime film is overburdened, overstuffed and at times too dense to be truly enjoyed, since the authors struggled to cram so many subplots and characters into the story, yet it still has enough charm and anime spirit to make it work. “One Piece: Red” shares the basic plot elements of Hosoda's anime film “Belle”, where a teenage girl is attempting to become a singer superstar in a parallel world, since there are uncharacteristically many songs for this kind of genre thanks to the new character of singer Uta, who uses her singing as a form of magical powers that allow her to do anything, Genie-Aladdin-style. The opening act works the best: it almost starts as a reference to Hill's film "Streets of Fire" in which a singer is abducted on stage during a concert—here, several gangsters want to kidnap singer Uta on stage, but, in a great twist, she turns out to be the one in full control, since her singing powers easily defeat said villains. In a further twist, the sympathetic Uta turns into an unlikely villain herself: initially, she wants to create an utopia of happiness for everyone, but when Luffy and the gang decline, since they want to go on their own adventures and don't want to stay with her for the rest of their lives, she starts enforcing her vision, thereby creating a fundamentalist dictatorship, in a sly jab at numerous revolutions in history that started out with good intentions, but ultimately just brought about a new layer of terror. Unfortunately, the rest of the film feels out of touch with the viewers, since its frenetic pace doesn't allow for the rushed story to simply calm down and give the audience time to "interact". Numerous characters feel almost like extras (Nami, Zoro, Usopp) since there was not enough time to give everyone a scene to shine, and even Luffy is almost the supporting character in his own movie. The bizarre finale involving a double fight in the real and dream world ultimately just leads to the typical 'fightorama', feeling more obligatory than inspired. "One Piece: Red" is good and imaginative, but feels like a syncretic "A Star is Born" and "Dragonball" patchwork dictated by the committee.

Grade:++