I Never Sang for My Father

I Never Sang for My Father; drama, USA, 1970; D: Gilbert Cates, S: Gene Hackman, Melvyn Douglas, Estelle Parsons, Dorothy Stickney, Elizabeth Hubbard

Gene Garrison, a college professor, picks up his parents, Tom and Margaret, at the airport after they came back a vacation. Gene's wife died, but he met a new woman, Peggy, yet is reluctant to move with her to California because he doesn't want to abandon his parents. When Margaret dies from a heart attack, Tom could be left alone in the house. Gene's sister, Alice, who was banished by dad for marrying a Jew, returns for the funeral and recommends to get a housemaid for Tom, but he refuses. Gene is torn between going with Peggy and staying to take care of his father, who is of failing health. Tom tells him he hated his alcoholic father who left him and his mother. After an argument, Gene leaves the house for good. Gene narrates how Tom died later.

Even though it was critically acclaimed during its premiere, Gilbert Cates' father-son relationship drama "I Never Sang for My Father" is today rather dated, tripping too much over melodrama and too sappy excess. It works due to the strong, dedicated and committed performances of veteran actors, the excellent Gene Hackman and Melvyn Douglas, who keep the movie going in spite of itself. The overlong, ponderous or heavy-handed dialogues reveal that the movie works only on one level, its theme, yet has nothing else going for it. Hackman's character Gene seems to have found himself in the son role from his later own movie "The Royal Tenenbaums", since Douglas' character of the grumpy dad Tom is truly difficult, though in a much more tragic edition here. Among other, Tom is constantly nagging Gene, telling him that he mumbles too much and cannot understand him; or that he didn't want to allow his late father to attend his late mother's funeral, prompting Margaret to comment: "Can you imagine going around telling everyone how he shoved his father off the funeral coach?" Gene even confesses to his sister: "Everytime I see him like this alseep, the old tiger, the old man, my father... And then he wakes up and becomes Tom Garrison, and I'm in a lot of trouble." It also contemplates the problem of taking care of old parents, who become a burden to their children, similarly like "Make Way for Tomorrow". However, humanity and emotions aside, there is not enough to conjure up some broader cinematic versatility, since the director stopped at just being solid, and nothing more. 

Grade:++

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

Shin Evangerion Gekijoban; animated science-fiction psychological drama, Japan, 2021; D: Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Katsuichi Nakayama, Mahiro Maeda, S: Megumi Ogata, Yuko Miyamura, Megumi Hayashibara, Fumihiko Tachiki, Kotono Mitsuishi, Maaya Sakamoto

The NERV and WILLE organizations battle each other, the former wanting to continue with a Fourth Impact to initiate an "upgrade" in human evolution, the latter trying to prevent it and restore Earth back to normal. Mari pilots an EVA robot that helps WILLE restore Paris back to normal. Shinji Ikari, Rei and Asuka go to live in a village, and participate in planting rice, or meet Misato Katsuragi's son, Ryoji Jr. A final battle of Evangelion robots is against Shinji's father, Gendo, who wants to start an "additional impact" to reunite with his late wife Yui. Plunging into an anti-universe, Shinji finds out more about Gendo's loneliness when he was a teenager, and his love for Yui. Using the Lance of Gaius, Shinji creates a "restart" of the world, cleaning it of misery. At a train station, Shinji is greeted by Mari, who has affections for him, and they both run away.

Nine years after the last film, "Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo", the director Hideaki Anno finally completed the 'reboot' film series with the fourth and final film, "Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time", yet 14 years after the first film, "Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone", one can safely conclude—it was not worth the wait. Anno's original '95 anime chef d'oeuvre simply cannot be topped, and the attempts to further explore or explain certain of its vague, confusing or abstract aspects won't give a satisfactory compensation. This final film didn't justify revisiting this story due to a lack of inspiration—the opening action sequence in Paris, covered in red plasma, where Mari's giant Evangelion robot uses the tip of the Eiffel Tower as a spear to attack and stab the energy consule of an Angel is brilliant and shows that Anno still has sharpness and ingenuity, yet all other action and battle sequences afterwards are just muddled and obfuscated. For instance, can anyone truly understand what is going on in the confusing battle sequence at around 80 minutes into the film? 

The image of a "spaceship-scarecrow" floating through some red ether doesn't give you that much of a kick. The almost hour long sequence where Shinji, Asuka and Rei live in a village and plant rice could have easily been cut without losing much from the overall impact of the story. Some shocking moments are dubious, as well, such as the one where Asuka takes her eyepatch off and pulls a giant rod from her eye to transform her EVA. The only truly focused ingridient is the finale which becomes a psychological study of Shinji's dad, Gendo, showing him in a flashback as a lonely teenager, indicating that he himself experienced the same intergenerational trauma of isolation as did Shinji. The film poses the question: is it alright to let go and simply embrace someone you love, as was Gendo's relationship with Yui, so that life goes on, as imperfect as it is? This helps Shinji connect more with his estranged father, and is able to finally outgrow his own anti-social behavior and to start a new phase in his life, the one where he goes on to connect with other people and become part of society. This psychoanalysis has merits and amends some other flaws of the story, making for a good, personal, albeit uneven movie.

Grade:++

21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street; comedy, USA, 2012; D: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, S: Jonah Hill, Chaning Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, DeRay Davis, Ice Cube

During high school, Schmidt was a geek who was unpopular, while Jenko was popular, but missed the prom night because he was punished for having low grades. Seven years later, they are both cops, and they both get a chance to go back to high school undercover to find who is selling a new drug, HFS, to teenagers. Schmidt falls in love with Molly and even holds a party at his parents' house, thus gaining popularity. Schmidt and Jenko discover Eric is selling drugs, and by investigating they find out his boss is physical education teacher Walters, so they arrest them during prom night. 

Before their success with writing "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and "The Lego Movie", Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directed this untypical comedy for the wide audience, a sort of spoof film adaptation of the serious crime TV series "21 Jump Street" from the 80s, and thus it comes as no surprise that in one scene the Deputy Chief ironically gives a wink to the viewers when he says: "We're reviving a canceled undercover police program from the '80s and revamping it for modern times. You see the guys in charge of this stuff lack creativity and are completely out of ideas, so all they do now is recycle shit". The movie works almost exclusively thanks to the comedy charm of comedian Jonah Hill, though his co-star Chaning Tatum also has his moments. The screenplay has an interesting twist—'geek' Schmidt was unpopular in high school, but now, as an undercover student, he finds times have changed and the new high school kids respect his intellect, giving him chance to finally become popular, whereas Jenko was considered dumb, but now hangs out with 'geeks' to learn something from them. 

Unfortunately, this is where the script stops and the rest is basically just routine, with several lame, forced or contrived situations on autopilot. A subplot where the teacher finds Jenko attractive, but is afraid to make any moves since she thinks he is still a minor, was dropped without the writers doing anything with it. The finale is typical "give up" conclusion that relies only on shouting and hysterics, without any further thought. However, one joke is outstanding and pure comedy gold: around 34 minutes into the film, Schmidt and Jenko have to take drugs from a dealer as to not blow their cover, but as they walk back through the school hall, they stumble upon the physical teacher Walters and try as hard as they can to stay "serious" while he talks, but they start uncontrollably giggling and experiencing hallucinations, such as Walters saying "So, you're Doug? You're Doug? You're Doug?" again and again; eyebrows on Walter's face going down to his lip to form a moustache; or Walter's head looking like an ice cream, while Schmidt sticks his tongue out, attempting to lick it. This goes even further, when Jenko is hyperactive afterwards and ostensibly writes a difficult equation on the school board, only for the camera to reveal he just wrote the same number "4" a thousand times. This is indeed a howlingly funny sequence, and is a highlight of the movie that is never able to repeat it on this level.

Grade:++

Land of the Lustrous

Hoseki no Kuni; animated fantasy series, Japan, 2017; D: Takahito Kyogoku, S: Tomoyo Kurosawa, Mikako Komatsu, Ai Kayano, Ayane Sakura

In the far future, advanced organic life has mostly vanished from Earth after an asteroid strike. The surface is inhabited by humanoid gems, consisting of around twenty female gems and their male master, Sensei, who live together in a palace on an island. They are often attacked by Lunarians, an unknown humanoid species from the Moon that often arrives on a floating black platform. The green-haired gem Phos is too fragile to fight, so Sensei orders her to write an encyclopedia. When Phos loses her legs in a fight with the Lunarians, but doctor Rutile repairs it and gives Phos new legs. During winter hybernation, Phos also loses her arms, while Antarcticite dies from Lunarians. Phos is given new arms made out of gold, but thus her personality changes and she becomes stronger. She decides to help the poisonous Cinnabar get a new assignment, since she is unhappy to be working only at night.

"Land of the Lustrous" is the darnedest thing: it only covers the first season of the manga and is thus left incomplete and unfinished, yet it hints at far greater potentials through its philosophical existantialist contemplation about the purpose of life and finding a new role in the world, reminiscent of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" just set in the far future with humanoid gems. One of the most bizarre and peculiar stories ever set in an anime, "Land of the Lustrous" has a sympathetic main protagonist, the green-haired Phos who undergoes a fascinating character arc from a weak, insecure personality to a tough, mature and more focused new character. It is freaky how often Phos' body breaks apart (she holds a gem on a cliff via her notebook, but both of her hands break and fall down; during the Lunarian attack, she loses her both legs), yet since she is a mineral-based being they are able to replace her limbs with new ones, including giving her golden arms, thus giving her also a new superpower where she can use gold to increase ten-fold and even transform it into various shapes, from a shield, through a "gold elevator" up to creating a humanoid golden figure as a distraction from a monster in episode 11. Yet, as Phos gets new body parts, her personality changes, too, since new elements give her a new composition. There are some thought-provoking questions here, such as what makes a person's personality, and how much would it change if new donors would occupy more and more share of said person's body. However, the story needed a more focused point and narrative, instead of straying into too weird moments (a giant snail swalloving Phos in episode 2 or a giant beige-colored Lunarian with six arms emerging from a "portal" through the sky in episode 10) which are of questionable usefulness. The themes of transformation of a person through time and personal growth are intruiging, and yet the ending is so vague and abrupt that one wishes for a second season to "wrap it up", since in this edition the viewers will feel "cheated out" of a conclusion. Due to some connection of character traits with features of minerals (cinnabar is toxic when its mercury component is placed at room temperature; amethyst appears in twinning version, and is thus represented through twins here) it can be considered as 'fan service' for geologists.

Grade:++

Weathering with You

Tenki no Ko; animated fantasy romance, Japan, 2019; D: Makoto Shinkai, S: Kotaro Daigo, Nana Mori, Shun Oguri, Tsubasa Honda

Hodaka (16) travels on a ship from his island to Tokyo, yet it is hit by a heavy rain storm. Hodaka is saved from drowning by Keisuke, who eventually takes pity on him and hires him to work in his Tokyo magazine publishing company with his niece Natusmi, where they investigate paranormal rumors. It is constantly raining, but Hodaka witnesses how a girl, Hina (18), prays and is able to stop the rain, causing sunshine. Hodaka and Hina open an Internet website where they charge people for Hina to stop the rain. Hina reveals the only way to stop the rain permanently is for her to sacrifice herself, thereby returning the weather back to normal. She disappears, Hodaka is chased by the police for escaping from his home, but is able to find Hina in the clouds. Hodaka persuades Hina not to sacrifice herself. The sunshine disappears, and the rain keeps falling for three years, drowning Tokyo. Returning back from his island, Hodaka meets Hina again in parts of Tokyo still not submerged by the sea.

Makoto Shinkai's 6th feature length anime film is a dark allegory on climate change which poses some uncomfortable questions about a clash between Ayn Rand's individuality of objectivism and the need for sacrifice for a greater collective good and the future of humanity. As with most of Shinkai's movies, "Weathering with You" also suffers from a too vague, loose 'stream-of-consciousness' narrative where there is an excess of superflous scenes which are disconnected from each other, no matter how gorgeously animated they are. In the first half, it almost seems as if large portions of the movie are just "random scenes" in search for some organized storyline. However, the main plot of the relationship between Hodaka and Hina, a girl who can bring sunshine and stop the rain, has its moments of poetry (for instance, an epic scene of Hodaka looking from the cliff, where a beam of light from the sky travels across the sea, as he narrates he found the other end of the light in the scene where the beam of light illuminates Hina in Tokyo). Wherever Hodaka goes, it is constantly raining. On the other hand, Hina has the power to clear the sky and bring sunshine, a stable weather. Their pairing is thus a merging of yin and yang. The ending is chilling—Hodaka shrugs off the fact that Hina's sacrifice could bring back a normal weather by claiming that the "world was always messed up", and thus the dark ending sets in. Hodaka and Hina choose individuality and personal happiness instead of saving collective humanity, which therefore destroys the happiness of millions of people. Is personal selfishness more important than selfless altruism which could change the future for the better of humanity? These themes deserved a better movie than the rather chaotic "Weathering with You", though it gives food for thought.

Grade:++

Holiday

Holiday; romantic comedy, USA, 1938; D: George Cukor, S: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Henry Kolker, Edward Everett Horton

While on vacation, Johnny Case met a girl, Julia Seton, and decided to marry her. Upon arriving at her home, Johnny is surprised to find out Julia lives in a mansion, since her father, Edward, is a rich banker, and isn't inclined that her daughter marries an "ordinary", working class man. Julia's sister Linda is much more free-spirited and thus actually connects with Johnny even better than the uptight Julia. The enagagement is announced at a New Year's Eve party. Upon hearing that Johnny wants to take a few days off from work to think about his role in life, and that he plans to sail away at the evening, Julia breaks up the engagement. Linda runs after Johnny in the ship, and they kiss.

One of George Cukor's lesser films is still a fine fun due to a competent screenplay and a tight rhythm, whereas the two leading actors Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn play these role as enthusiastically as if they are in an excellent film. "Holiday" is objectively a good film, yet it needed more snappy dialogues, ingenuity or inspiration to edge itself into something permanent, since its central theme of a clash between free-spirited individualism and rigid conformity, as well as advocacy for independence wasn't articulated as well as it could have been, and some moments of 'empty walk' reduce its quality. Even though most of the dialogues are rather routine or straightfroward, some of the best ones have spark and charm, whether comical ("If you ask me, this is the worst case of downright rudeness I've seen!" - "And has someone asked you?"; "You think talk is all it was?" - "I think it was less than that!") or emotional ("Johnny, when two people love each other as much as you do, anything that keeps them apart must be wrong"). The authors and actors seem to be more energetic about the movie than its actual final result warrants it, yet some of its best moments could have easily fit into the two best Grant-Hepburn comedies, "Bringing Up Baby" and "The Philadelphia Story".

Grade:++

Jacob the Liar

Jakob der Lügner; drama / tragicomedy, Germany / Czech Republic, 1974, D: Frank Beyer, S: Vlastimil Brodský, Erwin Geschonneck, Henry Hübchen, Blanche Kommerell, Manuela Simon, Armin Mueller-Stahl

A Jewish ghetto, World War II. Jakob Heym is caught by the guards walking on the streets after 8pm, and thus sent to report to the office for punishment. In the hallway, Jakob overhears a radio announcement that the Soviet Army is 20 km away from Bezanika. A superior releases him. In order to stop friend Mischa from stealing potatoes from a wagon, Jakob lies that he has a radio and heard the news of the Soviet Army. The rumors of the radio spread, and the people keep asking Jakob about further news, so he has to make stuff up, or lie that the radio is broken. Jakob also takes care of a little girl in his apartment, Lina. Mischa on the other hand marries Rosa. When Jakob reveals the truth, that there is no radio, his friend Kowalski hangs himself. The Nazi Army orders all the Jews deported from the ghetto on to a train, to an unknown direction.

One of the most famous movies from East Germany, a brave, honest and cathartic depiction of an episode from the Holocaust made by the Germans themselves, "Jacob the Liar" is a giant meditation on the ethical problem of lying in the name of giving people hope. Is it justified? Can a lie be used for good? Is it not better to simply accept reality, no matter how depressing it is? Can these lies create even more problems? The director Frank Beyer uses a "raw", minimalist style without music to depict the disturbing environment of a Jewish ghetto in World War II as a direct contrast to his protagonist's imaginary lies and pipe dreams, and is much more "grounded" and realistic than Benigni's similar "Life is Beautiful"—among other things, Jakob finds a fly in his bowl of soup, whereas when he decides to use a public toilet intended for German officers, his friend Kowalski has to deliberately throw some boxes on the ground, to distract a German guard who was waiting in front of said ocuppied toilet, so the guard beats Kowalski while Jakob secretly escapes from the toilet. One Jew who defied an order and approached a wagon was shot on the spot. On the other hand, Jakob is surprisingly optimistic and stoic as a character, which gives the story optimism—there is just enough humor for this whole story to not be unbearably depressing and dark. In the opening, a text says: "The story of Jakob the Liar never happened like that". But then another text adds: "Definitely not". "Maybe it happened like that, nontheless". In one scene, Jakob talks to the girl Lina: "I think school is a great invention. Dumb kids go in, and smart kids come out". Some illogical moments bother (why would nobody demand to see Jakob's alleged radio?) and certains scenes don't work (the cringe attempt of Jakob changing his voice to deceive Lina that she is listening to a radio hidden behind a wall), yet the story's overall grip is simply superior and intelligent.

Grade:+++

Trace of Stones

Spur der Steine; drama, Germany, 1966; D: Frank Beyer, S: Eberhard Esche, Manfred Krug, Krystyna Stypułkowska, Johannes Wieke, Walter Richter-Reinick

East Germany. Balla is a brute foreman of seven construction workers who cause a lot of problems privately, and wear cowboy hats, but are tolerated because they get the job done. A new manager, the idealistic Horrath, member of the Socialist Party of East Germany, arrives to the construction site, yet his authority is at first ignored by Balla. Horrath proposes work in three shifts. Another new employee is engineer Kati, but both Balla and Horrath fall in love with her. She decides to meet Horrath in an apartment, introducing him to the nosy landlord as "Kruger from Leipzig". After Kati becomes pregnant, the Communist Party members interrogate her about the unknown identity of father, fearing this will damage the party's reputation, but Kati refuses to reveal it is Horrath, since he is married. When the Party finds out, anyway, Horrath is demoted to an ordinary worker, but Balla surprisingly goes to defend him. A committee investigation drops the charges against Horrath, but Kati decides to leave the city, anyway, to start a new life.

Frank Beyer's drama "Trace of Stone" was surprisingly subversive and critical of the Communist Party, and was thus banned and landed in "bunker" in East Germany until the fall of Communism. Upon its "re-discovery", many film critics rightfully praised it, though it has some omissions—the first half is brilliant and wonderfully creative, but the second half is way too routine and suffers from too excessive dialogues, until it exhausts the viewers' enthusiasm through the overlong running time of 139 minutes. The first half has a few great moments: in one scene, a Communist official is holding a long speech in the hall, concluding with: "I wish you, ladies and gentlemen, a welcome to the festivities for the 10th birthday of our Republic!", causing the cynical Balla to turn around and look at his collague, when they have this exchange: "The Republic will think of this bright evening even when she will be 20!" - "It won't get to be this old." A Party member from the stage replies: "You can answer through your deeds on the construction site, colleague Balla!" The new characters who arrive to work at the construction site are neatly introduced—Kati shows up to work as an engineer, but an official is reluctant to hire her, explaining: "If at least you were ugly! ... The workers will look under your skirt all the time!" - "Can't a woman wear pants?", which displays her integrity and resourcefulness. 

Manager Horrath is the embodiment of the young, naive newcomer who is faced with a dark reality check—during the rain, he meets Balla and stretches out his hand for a handshake. Balla, wearing a giant cowboy hat, just looks down, and water from his hat falls down on Horrath's hand. Since Balla and his colleagues often wear these black cowboy hats and act defiantly, they may serve as a symbol for American-style solutions which can get wild and problematic, but get the job done, challenging the Communist Party control. Horrath on the other hand is the symbol for numerous ideological people who will get disappointed in Communist management and become disillusioned. Remarkably, both male characters undergo an opposite character arc: Balla from a chaotic brute to a kind, respectful man who in the end stands up to protect Horrath in front of the investigation committee, whereas Horrath starts as a man full enthusiasm, only to sink into despair and cynicism in the end. The second half is a lot weaker, unfortunately. Too much time is spent on the Party committee interrogating Kati, whereas the other dialogues explaining the love triangle are standard and boring. This in the end wears the story down and reduces its enjoyment value. Everything was clear already after 10 minutes, there was no need to prolong this for a whole hour. Either the movie needed to be shorter or its inspiration needed to have been more abundant in the last hour. Nonetheless, "Trace of Stones" is a clever and bitter depiction of interwoven relations between private and business life, and how they can disrupt each other, and features some fine performances. 

Grade:++

20 Days in Mariupol

20 dniv u Mariupoli; documentary, Ukraine, 2023; D: Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Liudmyla Amelkina, Roman Golovanov

On 24 February 2022, Russian fascist Vladimir Putin decides to become a Hague-indicted war criminal. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine starts, massacring in order to create a Greater Russia, journalist Msytslav Chernov teams up with Frontline PBS and Associated Press to document the siege of Mariupol. Several people flee the coastal city, while those who stay witness shelling, bombing, lack of electricity, water and food, forcing some to break into stores and steal any food left. The hospital is overwhelmed with wounded people from the shelling. On 9 March, Russian forces bomb the maternity hospital: a pregnant woman's pelvis is crushed, and she dies. As Russian tanks invade the city, Chernov is ordered by his boss to leave the city. Around 2,000 cars with civilians evacuate in a Red Cross convoy, arriving to safety, outside the occupied territory.

There are some movie for which you know that its scenes will haunt you for the rest of your life. Mstyslav Chernov's documentary "20 Days in Mariupol"—for better of for worse—may have at least six of them, unforgettable in its painfulness. It is a direct, depressing, shocking and unflinching recording of history, of a community that was destroyed in the war. Chernov is an example of the right man being on the right place, since the magnitude of events happening in Mariupol were of such relevance that practically anything he filmed made for a great documentary: he asks a little girl hiding in the basement during the bombing how she feels, and she responds with crying: "I don't want to die". A medic in an ambulance giving CPR to a 4-year old wounded child, trying to revive the kid. Firefighters breaking the wall-fence to enter a backyard in order to extinguish a fire on the rooftop of a hit house. A scared hamster running on the street, lost, while its owner tries to catch it. A man showing a turtle in a plastic storage box in water, saying "It also just wants to live", not knowing how to feed it when people themselves experience a shortage of food. A scared older woman shouting outside that she doesn't know where to go. A doctor unwrapping a blanket to show the corpse of a baby in the basement of the hospital. Similarly like "Schindler's List" and "Shoah", "20 Days in Mariupol" also shows how pure evil can destroy the lives of people, how a totalitarian dictatorship negates any human right or dignity, and how people are trapped in a cycle of violence caused by irredentism and annexationism, in this case Greater Russia. It is an outstanding chronicle, powerful and emotional, a memory to all those who want to forget "inconvenient" history, and a mental diagnosis of Goreshist Russia, a miscarriaged society.

Grade:+++

No Time to Die

No Time to Die; action thriller, UK / USA, 2021; D: Cary Joji Fukunaga, S: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz 

Madeleine Swann, a little girl, sees how her family is shot by Safin, as revenge because her father killed his family, under orders of Blofeld. However, Safin spares Madeleine. Twenty years later, James Bond is in a relationship with Madeleine, now a psychiatrist, but after Spectre tries to assassinate him, he ends all contact with her, falsely assuming she betrayed him. In the present, Spectre steals a British secret weapon, a DNA-targeted gas with nanobots that can be programmed to kill a specific person based on his or her DNA. Bond joins the CIA, and then goes back to the service of MI6. He finds out Madeleine had a daughter with him. They go to an island in the Pacific where Spectre has a secret lab aiming to kill millions using the DNA-weapon. Bond keeps the roof of the lab open when the British rockets strike it, destroying it, but killing Bond with them.

The 25th James Bond, a one which completed Daniel Craig's six-movie entry as the famous british spy, "No Time to Die" is a good and highly unusual film, a one that shows how far the franchize strayed away from the first film entry, "Dr. No", almost 60 years ago. This isn't the typical James Bond anymore, but rather a post-modern science-fiction spy tragedy. The authors went into the territory many thought James Bond movies will never go—even more so than "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"—and thus it deserves credit and respect for its bravery: Bond's relationship and his fragile humanity here take the center stage, changing the formula considerably and adding new layers to the story. However, the ending isn't as emotional as one would have expected, and one cannot quite figure out why. Maybe because there is something calculative and mechanical to the writing, or because the humanization of Bond didn't go far enough. The action sequences are very good, though much more scarce and subdued this time around, whereas the emotional relationships and dialogues of Bond and his love Madeleine (very good Lea Seydoux) are not strong enough to be a worthy compensation. The nanobot DNA-targeted weapon is closer to some futuristic dystopia than a realistic element, yet it creates sufficient suspense. While the depressing and thrill elements cause a slight tonal imbalance, "No Time to Die" is one of the most interesting—and experimental—Bond movies, a one that subverts the expectations, but in a good and meaningful way. It also serves as a quality ending of the entire franchize.

Grade:++

Easy A

Sve pet; documentary, Croatia, 2003; D: Dana Budisavljević, S: Lidija Šunjerga

When she was 19, Lidija from Kaštela accepted a shady job of a waitress in Amsterdam, but once there, she was among the 15 girls who discovered they were held captive by the mafia to work as prostitutes in a Red Light district. Lidija taught herself how to speak Dutch, cotacted a police officer and was freed. However, she stayed in Amsterdam for over a decade, working in porn movies. After she could not renew her visa, she came back to Croatia to announce she works as a porn actress, yet only received offers for third-class movies. Lidija visited her mother and sister Jasminka, and had several relationships with men, including a former drug addict living in a farm. Lidija finally gets pregnant at 37, but her lover refuses to accept the legitimacy of the child. 

Sometimes it suffices just to find a person who experiences an incredible life story to make an interesting documentary. One such case is Dana Budisavljevic's "Easy A" that just follows Lidija Sunjerga, a woman whose life is so insane that it is fascinating: more plot twists and surprises happen to her than in 10 soap operas. For one, even though she was the victim of human trafficking and forced prostitution in Amsterdam, after being released she decided to continue with such a branch and made several porn movies, before returning to Croatia. For other, she had a lot of problems trying to blend back in the conservative Dalmatian mentality. However, she is a very intelligent person and always acts as if she is in a life adventure, which makes all these stories perplexing and even a bit comical. Archive footage is used from her AV movies up to her appearance in the Željko Malnar TV show, where she bravely publicly announced she is a porn star, hoping to attract directors to make movies, only to be disappointed that Croatia doesn't have any professional AV industry. Other details are amusing as well (the address of her family's house is "Path of Graveyard"; she argues her deceased dad beat her and that she escaped because of that, while her sister claims he only beat her because she was disrespectful and "didn't listen"; her mother adds how "nicotine saved her sanity"; Lidija saying she is only "occasionally infatuated" with a guy...), and a lot of random stuff happens out of nowhere, just like in real life, as even Budisavljevic joked how she was struggling as to when to end the movie, because insane events just kept happening to Lidija, even after the filming was completed. It's as if Lidija is a magnet for compelling events. "Easy A" is more of a silent observer of how sometimes life directs its own movie.

Grade:+++

Vukovar: A Story

Vukovar, jedna priča; war drama, Serbia, 1994; D: Boro Drašković, S: Mirjana Joković, Boris Isaković, Svetlana Bojković, Predrag Ejdus, Mihailo Janketić

Vukovar, 1 9 8 9. Croat girl Ana and Serb lad Tomo observe the fall of the Berlin Wall on TV. Some time later, they get married, but already ominously observe two protests on the streets: one for Yugoslavia, the other for Croatian independence. As the rise of Serb and Croat nationalism causes friction, Tomo is drafted and sent to the Yugoslav Army. In 1 9 9 1, the Croatian War of Independence and the Battle of Vukovar erupt. A pregnant Ana goes to live with her Croat parents, but their house gets destroyed in the war. Ana and Tomo briefly reunite, but then Ana hides with other people in the basement. She gives birth in an abandoned house. Two buses drive off two nations in two seperate directions: Ana and other Croats drive off towards Zagreb, while Tomo and other Serbs drive off towards Belgrade.

One of the rare movies about the Battle of Vukovar, the bloodiest episode from the Croatian War, Boro Draskovic's "Vukovar: A Story" is today remembered for its incredible decision to recreate the battle on location, just two years later. The viewers are not watching a movie set—they are watching the "real thing", the realism of post-war destruction and consequences of urbicide. Despite its controversies, the movie is overall surprisingly neutral and balanced—it doesn't depict the event through neither the perspective of Croatian politics nor Serb politics, but instead through the gaze of ordinary civilians whose idyll is ruined by chaos when they find themselves in the middle of god's war. The story about a Romeo & Juliet-style couple, Croat Ana and Serb Tomo, is banal, melodramatic and sometimes even pretentious (the line "The truth in one time era can become a delusion in the other"), yet it has enough honest anti-war observations and balance to deserve a recommendation. The battle starts some 45 minutes into the film, and it is depicted in an earnest manner, with several shocking, dark and depressing moments: a pregnant Ana and a woman are raped inside their house when burglars storm inside. Two Serb soldiers flip-flop on a seesaw overseeing the ruined city, shooting with machine guns in the sky, chanting: "We will build a better and older city!" Ana observing a tank crashing through the fence into her garden, shooting at the house. The leitmotiv of a white peacock that is a symbol of lost peace, noticeable when Ana observes a house burning, and the peacock flies away from it. Ana exiting the basement, only to open the door and spot fire in the city outside. There are several flaws, especially in the overabundance of archive footage of everything, yet the movie's tragic theme about how war destroys a community rings true, the actors deliver fine performances, whereas the final 3-minute aerial shot of the ruins of Vukovar is impressive and says everything.

Grade:++

Carole & Tuesday

Carole & Tuesday; animated science-fiction music drama series, Japan, 2019; D: Shinichiro Watanabe, S: Miyuri Shimabukuro, Kana Ichinose, Akio Otsuka, Miyu Irino, Sumire Uesaka, Hiroshi Kamiya

Mars in the future. Blond teenage girl Tuesday flees from the home of her mother, Valerie, a political candidate who wants to win elections running on a xenophobic platform with a promise of deporting refugees back to Earth. Tuesday meets musician teenage girl Carole, an orphan, they become friends and decide to form a music band. They perform and their video goes viral on the Internet, and thus manager Gus decides to lead them. Carole & Tuesday attend a music pop idol talent show, where they win together with Angela. They sign a contract and release their own single. In order to protest against the treatment of musicians who are arrested for singing controversial politicial songs, Carole & Tuesday rally all the best Martian musicians together and let them perform in the Immigration Memorial Hall on Christmas, which becomes a sensation on Mars. Valerie quits her political race.

"Carole & Tuesday" is an anime series whose first third is so outstanding that you are taken aback at how underwhelming it is for the next two thirds of its story. You wish its last 17 episodes were as great as its first seven episodes. Overall, it is a sweet, charming and often funny depiction of young musicians trying to make it, to achieve their dream, practically having to beg producers and famous musicians to just give them a chance to listen to them sing, whereas the animation is highly detailed and crafted with finesse, yet the director Shinichiro Watanabe once again shows that he never managed to repeat his greatest achievement, "Cowboy Bebop", which here shares only "Carole & Tuesday's" setting—a terraformed Mars—but does not share its quality. The opening seven episodes are wonderful, showing Watanabe in a highly inspired edition, adding the two title heroines an emotional dimension which is easy to understand—the first episode shows Carole playing music on a synthesizer on the bridge, while the pedestrians ignore her, as she narrates: "I know my music won't reach anyone here. I know no one is interested in me. But I still want to sing, let these feelings out." 

However, the anime also has a lot of comical moments: a stand-out is manager Gus, who transforms from an alcoholic bum in a bar to a fully sober, focused man in an instant as soon as he hears Carole & Tuesday's music video on a mobile phone, as if he found his meaning again. For instance, episode #2 shows Carole taking a job of a person who mourns at the funeral of a deceased rich stranger, but as she spots a butterfly on the head of a bald priest, instead of crying, she bursts into laughter, thus losing her contract, whereas Carole & Tuesday's amateur music video in episode #4 is hilariously bad. The audition of the contestants for the Martian pop idol talent show is so absurd it almost reaches the level of a parody—one candidate is a ventriloquist whose dummy sings, while the other is a grandmother who starts with an openning that the following song is dedicated to her deceased mother, who sang this to her when she was a child, only to then start a demented hip-hop chanting while she slides across the studio using her cane, shocking the judges. However, one gets the impression the story should have ended with the conclusion of this talent show at around episode #12, since the plot is lost after it. The story simply doesn't know what to do with these characters in the second half, exhausting itself with one-episode subplots which don't go anywhere (transgender musician Desmond invites them to sing one last time before he dies; retired producer Tobe; Flora, Gus' former client...) and feel pointless. There is one good joke in episode #23 (Pyotr and GCK, who lost the talent show contest, form a new band, "Losers"), but the overindulgance with long singing throughout several episodes reduces the anime's grip on the narrative, making it too routine, vague and mechanical in the second half.

Grade:++

The Creator

The Creator; science-fiction action, USA, 2023; D: Gareth Edwards, S: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Allison Janey, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe

In the future, a nuclear warhead is fired at Los Angeles, and the US government blames the AI for it, thereby banning all Ai in technology. The Western world declares total war against AI in New Asia, where humans still live peacefully with AI in the form of robots and androids. US sergeant Joshua Taylor is an undercover agent who got intimate with Maya, whose father is Nirmata, the architect who helps AI evolve. Maya was hit in a strike, but Joshua returns to Asia to try to find her and Nirmata. He only stumbles upon a cyborg child, Alphie. As they are hunted down, Joshua finds out Maya was Nirmata, and that she encoded the DNA of their fetus in Alphie. Also, allegedly the nuclear attack was a human coding error. The US Army kidnaps Alphie, but Joshua helps her escape and go to the US secret weapon NOMAD in space. Alphie has the ability to shut down and control all technology, and thus destroys NOMAD, but Joshue dies inside it.

"The Creator" is a dark, depressive and unpleasant hypothetical contemplation of the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI), and through it of some more universal themes of a fear between one species surpassing another one—can there be a peaceful co-existence or is the existential conflict over domination inevitable? The director Gareth Edwards crafts a fluent, dynamic and suspensful sci-fi film, with a lot of sense for technical achievements, especially the visual effects of robots, androids and the space war station NOMAD which scans and bombards targets on Earth, whereas its two main actors, John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles, are convincing in playing Joshua and Alphie who bond emotionally, giving it tragic weight. It is also a chilling commentary on the mentality of total war, where the enemy is fully dehumanized to such an extent that this reaches the level of xenophobia (a robot screams in panic and emotional appeal, but Joshua just cuts off its cable, despite a disturbed woman watching, claiming it's "just programming" and that its consciousness isn't real). However, the film focuses too much on action sequences at times at the expense of the more philosophical elements, whereas its last third falters due to several plots holes and inconsistencies. For instance, it is established that Alphie has the ability to simply shut off all technology—so why didn't she start using this much earlier, when the army arrived to kidnap her and fly away in helicopters? Why would precisely Joshue be summoned to execute her in the laboratory, and not someone else? These huge plot holes and a forced sentimental ending weaken the movie, which for some reason by that point entered the chatbot territory, since some of its elements felt mechanical and stiff.

Grade:++

Four Rooms

Four Rooms; black comedy, USA, 1995; D: Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, S: Tim Roth, Ione Skye, Valeria Golino, Madonna, David Proval, Jennifer Beals, Lana McKissack, Danny Verduzco, Antonio Banderas, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Calderon, Bruce Willis

Four stories involving bellboy Ted encountering bizarre guests at his hotel: a group of women-witches try to re-awaken their goddess, Diana, in a bathtub soup, but one of them forgot an ingredient, sperm, so she decides to seduce Ted... While entering room 404, Ted is held at gunpoint by a seemingly jealous husband who has his wife tied up to a chair, accusing Ted to sleeping with her... A Hispanic man gives Ted 500$ to babysit his two kids, Sarah and Juancho, in the hotel room while he is off having a romantic night with his wife outside. But the kids misbehave... A Hollywood filmmaker, Chester, offers Ted 1,000$ to participate in a bet: if Norman can light his lighter ten times in a row, he wins Chester's car, but if he fails, Ted must hack up Norman's pinky finger. Norman fails to ignite the lighter even on the first try, Ted hacks up his finger, collects the money and leaves the room.

A disparate collection of episodes directed by four directors, "Four Rooms" is a hit-or-miss affair, though the film critics cannot agree upon which episodes are the better ones. Undoubtedly, the first story involving some obscure coven of witches trying to revive their goddess in the hotel bathtub is indeed the weakest link, failing to be either inspired or clever, and is simply not funny. The sole concept is misguided, the dialogues are stale, and the execution is routine. The fourth episode, directed by and starring Quentin Tarantino, is also among the camp of the subpar episodes, defying the old saying "save the best for last". Despite a neat openning 7-minute scene filmmed in one take, it is the weakest film Quentin Tarantino ever directed: it can be summed up as "much talk about nothing", since his enthusiasm for talking isn't working if it isn't matched by the sentences his characters are saying, which are here underwhelming. Likewise, the bet involving hacking off someone's little finger if he fails to light a lighter ten times in a row is ill-conceived, since it is more appropriate for some drugged teenagers playing truth or dare than serious grown ups who would volontarily engage in such a folly. However, episodes #2 and #3 work, and this is where "Four Room" finally lifts-off. The hostage-taking role play by husband and wife in the second story is directed by Alexandre Rockwell with a sense for visual style (Ted falling down in slow-motion; camera circling around him while he is on the floor; Ted stuck half-way in the window) and snappy dialogues ("Whether you like it or not, you are in the middle of a situation here you cannot just wish your way out of"; "Do you have the faintest idea what it's like to arrive at school and find yourself surrounded by the maladjusted?"). The third story, directed by Robert Rodriguez, is also funny, though it was a mistake to cast two little kids in such an adult setting, having the kid smoke and the girl see a dead prostitute hidden in the mattress, whereas it is a pity that the excellent Tim Roth is barely in this story, since he is just a supporting character this time around. Nonetheless, its finale is the comic highlight of this anthology film.

Grade:++

Ulysses' Gaze

To Vlemma tou Odyssea; art-film, Greece / France / Italy / UK / Germany / Serbia / Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995; D: Theo Angelopoulos, S: Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern, Erland Josephson, Thanssis Veggos, Yorgos Michalakopoulos

A Greek-American director, A, arrives to Greece to find the three undeveloped film reels of the Manaki brothers, the pioneers of cinema of the Balkans at the start of the 20th century. He hires a taxi driver to go to Albania, but snow stops the journey. He then goes to Skopje where the film reels are alleged to be, but the film archive informs him they were sent to Bulgaria. He has an affair with a woman in the train. He boards a ship sailing across the Danube, and arrives in Belgrade. His friend informs him that the film reels were sent to Ivo in Sarajevo for development, but that he lost any contact with him during the Serb siege. A daringly travels all the way to war-torn Sarajevo and meets Ivo, finally finding the film reels. A falls in love with Ivo's daughter, but she, Ivo, and two kids are shot by Serb paramilitary during the fog and thrown into the Miljecka river. A mourns after their death. He plays the screening of the film reels, but it is just a blank screen.

Director Theo Angelopoulos is an acquired taste, and his hermetic art-film "Ulysses' Gaze" is an even more acquired taste within that, which is a reason why it was too obscure to satisfy even his hardcore fans—it is a meandering road movie without a clear storyline, instead relying more on the power of aesthetic images and the subconscious mood to communicate with the viewers and bring its point across. It's a difficult film to sit through because it is so slow, but, just like most of his films, it "sinks in" into your mind and stays there after a while. The vague plot of film director A (Harvey Keitel) searching for some undeveloped film reels across the Balkans is used more like a travelcard than a real, developed film idea, and Angelopoulos only has the one film technique, the long, demanding Antonioni-Tarkovsky-style shots filmed in one take (the entire movie has only around 60 cuts), whch becomes monotone after a while. However, he is able to use it in his vision of the allegorical history of the Balkans, starting from the Greece, a symbol of hope and civilization; through the ship transporting a 100-foot tall broken statue of Lenin, lying horizontally, along the Danube as the people wave at the ship from the shore, a symbol of the funeral of Communism; up to the siege of Sarajevo, a war at the end of the century in a place where World War I started at the beginning of the century. 

Some scenes are indeed impressive, especially those surreal ones where past and present merge in the same location. An hour into the movie, there is a monumental 10-minute long scene filmed in one take—the camera drives around a house, as it shows family members greeting each other at the dinning table, all until the camera stops and holds still in a static shot in the hallway, showing A dancing with his mother, in a triple (!) New Years' party, where at first someone says "Happy new 1 9 4 5!", but then some agents enter through the door, take away a man who says: "Happy new 1 9 4 8!", while the people continue dancing, only for all their chairs, the piano and other possessions to be taken away by Communist agents, someone says it is "1 9 5 0", and then the family members gather and look directly into the camera, all the while it zooms in onto the face of a boy. In another example, A is interrogated by a Bulgarian official who reads him the charges that the Manaki brothers had weapons and explosives which were to be used against the Bulgarian army; A is then blindfolded and sent in front of a World War I firing squad, but then off screen someone is heard saying that his sentence is changed to exile to Plovdiv, and then A takes the blindfold off, he is back in the present, he goes to a Bulgarian border crossing and announces he is heading towards said city. With a 3-hour running time, "Ulysses' Gaze" is definitely overlong, ponderous and pretentious, whereas Angelopoulos spends too much time on unecessary or trivial details. The best part is the final act, showing the siege of Sarajevo, and A wondering through ruins of the buildings. There are some surreal moments here (patients from a mental asylum exiting the building during the chaos, observing two dead people on the streets and a car burning), and a chilling one (murder in the fog, where a Serb paramilitary says: "It's God who made us, and he messed it all up."). Did "Ulysses' Gaze" need to last for three hours? No. Is it a meditative essay on history of the Balkans that deserves to be seen? Yes.

Grade:++

In the Name of the Father

In the Name of the Father; legal drama, UK, 1993; D: Jim Sheridan, S: Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite, John Lynch, Don Baker, Corin Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Beatie Edney

Belfast, 1 9 7 4. While playing with a stick on a rooftop, Irish lad Gerry Conlon is mistaken for a sniper and chased by the British police. In order for the situation to "cool down", Gerry is sent by his father Giuseppe to settle for a while in London, together with another Irish lad, Paul Hill. Upon returning to Belfast, Gerry is arrested and interrogated by Inspector Dixon, who coerces him to sign a statement. Later, this is used as evidence on trial where Gerry and Giuseppe are convicted as IRA terrorists guilty of Guildford pub bombings. In prison, Giuseppe becomes sick and eventually dies. Gerry is contacted by lawyer, Mrs. Gareth Peirce, who starts investigating his case. She discovers a document in the archives titled "Not to be shown to the defense", which confirms that Dixon knew years ago that someone else confessed the bombings. Upon a re-trial, the court acquits Gerry, who is finally released from prison after 15 years.

Based on the real life case of Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, one of the most notorious examples of British miscarriage of justice, "In the Name of the Father" is a gripping, engaging, authentic and energetic movie experience, though the director Jim Sheridan is much more inspired during the first and last act when it is a legal drama and depiction of Gerry Conlon's private life and behavior (excellent Daniel Day-Lewis) than the second, middle act which plays out in prison. The almost hour long prison segment is boring and routine, failing to justify wasting so much of the movie's running time, though Sheridan wanted to illustrate Conlon's plight and mental torture by enduring 15 years in prison as an innocent man. Historical inaccuracies aside (Gerry and his father did not share the same prison cell), "In the Name of the Father" flows smoothly, and a high compliment should be given to the outstanding, crystal-clear cinematography by Peter Biziou, which gives a sense of higher aesthetic even during the most mundane scenes. A great pity is that the character of lawyer and human rights activist Mrs. Gareth Peirce appears so late, around 80 minutes into the film, which is scarce since she is played miraculously by Emma Thompson and clearly dominates every scene she is in. One of the best moments is when their case is at an impasse, so Gerry tells Gareth to do "whatever is necessary"—cut to the next scene of Gareth marching with hundred human rights activists protesting for Gerry's release. While more significant morally and humanistically than cinematically, this movie is a valuable legal lesson and a strong piece of drama.

Grade:+++

...And Justice for All

...And Justice for All; legal drama, USA, 1979; D: Norman Jewison, S: Al Pacino, John Forsythe, Jack Warden, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Lahti, Robert Christian, Thomas Waites, Lee Strasberg

Arthur is a stressed lawyer who is tackling several cases before the court, but always gets disappointed by the flaws of the legal system: he represents an African American cross-dresser, Ralph, and persuades him to settle before the court for the charge of robbery because he will only get a parole, but when Arthur is absent and his friend closes the case, his error has Ralph sentenced to jail, so Ralph commits suicide. McCullaugh has been arrested for a broken car light, the police found out he has the same name as a killer and sent him to jail, so Arthur punched the judge Fleming. When Fleming is charged for raping and beating a woman, he pressures Arthur to defend him before the court. However, when Fleming refuses to hasten the acquittal of McCullaugh, the later rebels in prison and is shot. An angry Arthur thus says that Fleming is guilty of rape in his closing statement, and is thrown out of the court building. 

The satirical legal drama screenplay by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson was suprisingly sloppily directed by veteran director Norman Jewison, who was not able to balance the uneven, heavy-handed elements of awkward humor and tragedy of legal injustice, and thus the only reason to see "...And Justice for All" is the outstanding performance by the always excellent Al Pacino who once again gives it his best, yet in order to see him the viewers need to pave their way through a whole sea of lukewarm scenes and situations. There are simply too many excess sequences of Arthur visiting his grandfather (Lee Strasberg, Pacino's acting coach), judge Rayford flying with Arthur in a helicopter or Arthur's boring romance with Gail, an underwritten and uninteresting supporting character, which are all pointless and should have been cut, since they needlessly overstretch the movie's running time to two hours. The best parts are precisely the ones where the movie explores Arthur's disillusionment with the personal caprice of judges or utter negligence of lawyers, which render the legal system into a corrupt failure: the tragic fates of the innocent convict McCullaugh and the sensitive cross-dresser Ralph terrified of going to jail ring the strongest. The authors did not know how to shape the story around these best pits, since even the ending seems meagre and incomplete, leaving a subpar impression.

Grade:++

Darkness in Tallinn

Tallinn pimeduses; crime, Estonia / Finland, 1993; D: Ilkka Järvi-Laturi, S: Ivo Uukkivi, Milena Gulbe, Monika Mäger, Enn Klooren, Väino Laes, Peeter Oja, Jüri Järvet, Villem Indrikson, Andres Raag

After the end of the Soviet ocuppation, Estonia regains its independence and orders that its gold reserves from Paris be brought back. As the truck with the gold is heading towards the central bank in Tallinn, a group of criminals plans to steal it. Electrician Toivo accepts the offer of two gangsters, Dimitri and Andres, to head towards his power plant and turn off electricity in Tallinn at midnight, but when an official there gets suspicious, Dimitri shoots him, and forces Toivo at gunpoint to redirect the cables into one switch in less than two hours. Snipers shoot 13 police officers at the central bank and then the power blackout plunges the city in dark, so the gangsters steal the truck with gold and head to a cigarette factory to melt it into golden cigarettes. Toivo's wife Maria gives birth, but their baby is in an incubator which doesn't work in the hospital due to the electric blackout. Toivo turns the power back on and helps the police to arrest the gangsters. He then goes to the hospital and awakens Maria in bed.

Written by an American, Paul Kolsby, and directed by a Finn, Ilkka Jarvi-Laturi, this cult heist crime film helped kick-off a new era of modern Estonian cinema. The story itself about a planned robbery of a truck full of gold by turning off the electricity in Tallinn at midnight is standard, yet it is enriched thanks to unusual camera angles, bizarre film shots and examples of black humor—in the opening, as the gangster Mikhail is preparing for the heist in a tower, a waiter informs him that his wife is on the phone, calling him for dinner. "Tell her I'm dead!", Mikhail replies, upon which the waiter holds the phone and inquires again: "She asks if you will be alive for breakfast tomorrow". Another gangster has a 10-inch long "tube" hanging from his ear, which he uses to intermittently cut as to always have a new cigarette to light in his mouth. After the blackout at midnight, two thugs break into a store and shout at the owner, a grandmother, ordering her to give them all their money—and then the grandmother just pulls out a gun and shoots them both. These unexpected moments and sudden plot twists give "Darkness in Tallinn" spark and spice, with enough style to cover up the low budget production. The movie does start to drag in the last third, instead of igniting into a climax, and it is not consistently entertaining, since several moments feel slow or stale. It is also misguided to have the entire movie be filmed in black and white, all until 80 minutes into the film, when Toivo turns on the electricity again, and the movie then suddenly turns into color (!) for the last 15 minutes. Nontheless, the actors are all fine, whereas the authors show a lot of enthusiasm in trying to craft this crime extravaganza.

Grade:++

A Civil Action

A Civil Action; legal drama, USA, 1998; D: Steve Zaillian, S: John Travolta, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub, Kathleen Quinlan, Željko Ivanek, Bruce Norris, John Lithgow, Peter Jacobson, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, Stephen Fry, Sydney Pollack

Jan Schlichtman is a personal injury lawyer of a small legal firm who is pressured live on radio by Anne Anderson to take on the case of their small town of Woburn where eight children died of leukemia suspected to be caused by dumping of chemicals near the river by a company. At first, Jan drives there to tell them he won't be taking the case, but upon seeing the contaminated river, he changes his mind and starts doing preliminary investigation. He hires geologists to inspect the area, and talks to an employee who had seen chemicals being dumped by the company. Finally, Jan files a lawsuit against the company, but it is represented by his rival, the more experienced lawyer Jerry who sabotages the process. Ultimately, due to a shortage of money, Jan agrees on a settlement of 8 million $, which doesn't satisfy the families of Woburn, and his firm is dissolved.

The 2nd directorial work by screenwriter Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List", "Awakenings") is this excellent legal thriller-drama based on the real-life Anderson vs. Cryovac case which involved the contamination of the drinking water by dumping trichloroethylene near the river, and offers precise, concise and expert dissemination and analysis of the legal challenges in trying to build up a lawsuit against a much more wealthy opponent. Besides "The Thin Red Line", it is arguably the best 90s film featuring John Travolta following his post-"Pulp Fiction" boost, and delivers intelligent writing by Zaillian, which engages effortlessly until the end. The dialogues are simply snappy and clever—the opening is wonderful in establishing everything so fast by presenting the sly protagonist, personal injury lawyer Jan, bringing his plaintiff on a wheelchair in the courtroom, and even helping him drink water in front of the judge, causing the lawyer of the opposite side to write him and offer of 2 million $ on a paper, just to settle out of court, as Jan narrates: "It's like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth as much as a living, severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it's a long slow agonizing death, as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rise considerably. A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged." 

"A Civil Action" was described by Roger Ebert correctly as "John Grisham for grown ups", since it shows sobering real-life problems in trying to build up a case for a lawsuit: the lawyers need evidence, but to find them, they need to hire experts, which all costs, until they realize they lost all their savings without even knowing if they have a clear case or not. Their small law firm is not a match for the big company they are fighting against, showing this as a battle between David and Goliath. Jan's narration is consistently fascinating: "Only one and half percent of all cases ever reach a verdict. The whole idea of lawsuits is to settle, to compel the other side to settle. And you do that by spending more money than you should, which forces them to spend more money than they should, and whoever comes to their senses first, loses". Robert Duvall is weaker as the aloof, more experienced lawyer Jerry, but even he has great lines which are inserted "strategically" in the movie to comment on some situations, such as when Jerry speaks to his students: "Now the single greatest liability a lawyer can have is pride. Pride... Pride has lost more cases than lousy evidence, idiot witnesses and a hanging judge all put together." Zaillian is less inspired as a director, since the whole execution is more formal than genune, yet even here he has some fine cinematic techniques, such as jump cuts of several family members exchanging sitting in the office while Jerry all asks them the same questions, trying to obfuscate that the company is at fault for their health problems. As the finale bitterly concludes, justice—or rather in this case, a negotiated justice—is sometimes not very profitable, summing up a surprisingly elegant, intelligent and honest legal film.

Grade:+++

The Red Lanterns

Ta kokkina fanaria; drama, Greece, 1963; D: Vasilis Georgiadis, S: Tzeni Karezi, Giorgos Foundas, Dimitris Papamichael, Mary Hronopoulou, Alexandra Ladikou

The Red Lanterns is a bar that also works as a brothel. Several prostitutes work there: Eleni is a Romanian emigrant who arrived to Greece, but was left by her lover and thus now has to earn her money in the brothel. She is in a relationship with Petros from Alexandria, but keeps her profession a secret. When finds out that she is a prostitute during a party, he slaps her, but they eventually make up... Anna finally admits to Captain Nicholas that she secretly had a son with him, but he dies in a ship wreck at sea... Mary has sex with young lad Angelos and starts a relationship with him. He proposes her, but she laughs at him... Marina threatens to kill herself if her pimp leaves her, but he does... A new law is in force which forbids prostitution, so the bar is closed and the women decide to find new jobs.

A good depiction of prostitution in contemporary Greece, "The Red Lanterns" delivers five stories of uneven quality, though the director Vasilis Georgiadis does a good job in keeping the interest of viewers all until the end. One of the best stories involves Mary: as a young lad, Angelos, enters the brothel (implied to lose his virginity), she looks at him and jokingly says: "Did you ask your mom?" What follows is the "forbidden" relationship outside the prostitution frame, and it is written with enough spice and skill to stand out. Sadly, the other stories fare less, sometimes even playing out like a melodrama (the ultimate fate of Anna's lover, a Captain), whereas the subplot involving a cleaning lady who plans to build a shack with her homeless man could have been cut. Actress Tzeni Karezi is very good as Eleni, especially when she tells her pimp that she has been doing this job so long that she is numb, and her story is on pair with Mary, leading to a satisfactory conclusion. "The Red Lanterns" leads an elegant story with enough skill to deserve a recommendation, but it is held down by a too conventional style which makes it look rather standard and routine by today's standard, as one wishes it had something more to offer than the "spicy" theme and quality performances. 

Grade:++

All That Jazz

All That Jazz; drama / musical, USA, 1979; D: Bob Fosse, S: Roy Scheider, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking, Erzsébet Földi, Deborah Geffner, Jessica Lange, John Lithgow, Max Wright, William LeMassena, Sandahl Bergman

Each morning, theater director Joe Gideon takes his pills, eye drops and cigarettes to return back to show business. He is busy between staging a new Broadway musical and finishing the long-overdue film about a stand-up comedian. His private life and health thus suffer: he barely sees his ex-wife and daughter Michelle, whereas he constantly sleeps with new women who want to be dancers in the production. Eventually, the exhausted Joe suffers a heart attack, so the production is postponed for four months. From the hospital bed, Joe has hallucinations of the new stage production, and then dies.

Excellent "All That Jazz" is a burn-out story about artists who are so fascinated and absorbed by creating art that real life just gets in their way. The 4th and penultimate movie by choreographer Bob Fosse, who died only eigth years later, is a surreal felliniesque collection of episodes and stories, yet they all surprisingly ring true and are recognizable because of Fosse's own autobiographical moments which are universal, regardless of how cocooned they are in the abstract: Joe's movie about a stand-up comedian is an obvious allegory on Fosse's "Lenny", whereas several observations about struggling actresses trying to make it, only for Joe (brilliant Roy Scheider) to tell them they are not good enough, speak some bitter truths about show business. The biggest flaw are the last 30 minutes which drown in excess hallucinatory musical sequences, which should have been either cut or reduced to several minutes, since they drag "All That Jazz" into an overlong movie.

Fosse, a former dancer and choreographer, cannot resist not to insert numerous outstandingly choreographed dance and move scenes with style (around 33 minutes into the film, Fosse's alter ego Joe even has a dance choreography holding his 12-year daughter in his hands), which are fabulous to look at, yet he also has a great sense for snappy dialogues ("Don't bullshit and bullshiter."; "You shot 82 days on a 65-day schedule! On a four-month editing schedule, you've gone seven months! Joey, God made the entire world in six days. He didn't go on overtime once."; "Nothing I ever do is good enough. Not beautiful enough, it's not funny enough, it's not deep enough, it's not anything enough. Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say: "How the hell did you do that?"). The cinematography has some great shot compositions, managing to make even some normal scenes look engaging, whereas the fast cuts and metafilm touches (at one point, while a sick Joe is in bed, a healthy Joe shows up to hold a film clapperboard and direct a movie about his Broadway musical) not only make the movie seem modern, but also stay true to its theme of the hyperactive Joe who is exhausted by creating a movie and staging a play simultaneously, yet at the same time, it is the only thing that keeps him going in his life: it's both his biggest stimulant and his biggest toxicant. 

Grade:+++