Imitation of Life

Imitation of Life; drama, USA, 1959; D: Douglas Sirk, S: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Susan Kohner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Alda

New York. Lora, a struggling actress, loses her little daughter, Susie, on the beach, but she is luckily found by African American Annie and her mulatto daughter Sarah Jane. Grateful, Lora hires Annie to be her maid and live in her apartment. Lora falls in love with photographer Steve, but dumps him for playwright David who gives her the leading role in a hit play. 10 years later, Lora is famous and meets Steve again, so she takes a break from acting. An 18-year old Sarah Jane is ashamed of her black mother and wants to pretend she is white. Sarah Jane leaves the house, but when Annie catches her as a dancer in a night club, they argue. Sarah Jane refuses any further contact with her mother, who let's her live alone in California. Annie dies from a disease. At her funeral, Sarah Jane returns and expresses remorse at her coffin.

Douglas Sirk's final film before his retirement from directing, "Imitation of Life" works better than his other thin melodramas because it actually has two interesting stories to tell, which enrich his rather banal dialogue: one revolves around the always fascinating notion of a struggling actress trying to make it, in this case Lora (Lana Turner); the other about racial discrimination, in the form of a mulatto teenager, Sarah Jane, trying to pretend to be white, and being ashamed to be seen publicly with her black mother Annie (played endearingly by Juanita Moore). The first story is even today easy to identify with, since Lora admits to Steve that she saved money for five years to move to New York and try to make it there, with the highlight being her meeting with a Harvey Weinstein-like agent, Loomis, who admits that she has to allow to be seduced to secure roles: "If some producer with a hand as cold as a toad wants to do a painting of you in the nude, you will accommodate him for a very small part." - "You're disgusting!" - "Maybe I am. But let me assure you, once you make it, you can be idealistic all of 10 seconds before you die." He is the funniest character in the film, but quickly disappears later on. 

The first half is excellent, but the second half again shows signs of weakness and Sirk's tendency to resort to soap opera repertoire. Film critic Damir Radic called it the "best melodrama ever made", but that doesn't quite absolve it from some errors. The second story proves to be relevant due to its social criticism of the American 50s era, and advocating for a more humanistic world that cares for the character of people, not their physical appearance. Annie is such a noble, kind and affectionate mother, and thus Sarah Jane's shame for her is heartbreaking. As Annie says: "It's a sin to be ashamed of what you are... How do you explain to your child she was born to be hurt?" Some scenes are banal and badly directed (Sarah Jane's boyfriend is seen in only one sequence, when he slaps her upon finding out her mother is black, which is preposterous trash), and the second half "steals" the story too much from the protagonist Lora. However, the finale is so emotional that it could make even those viewers with a heart of stone cry, and make their tears flood the world.

Grade:+++

It Was Just an Accident

Yek tasadof-e sadeh; drama, Iran / France / Luxembourg, 2025; D: Jafar Panahi, S: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr

A man with a prosthetic leg, traveling with his wife and daughter, stops at a garage because his car broke down. Based on his limp, a car mechanic, Vahid, thinks he recognizes him as his former tormentor Eghbal in a torture chamber when he was protesting against the government for the delay of salaries. Vahid follows the man the next day, hits him and hides him inside his van. The man denies he is Eghbal. Vahid then invites other people who were in the prison, bride Goli and her groom, their wedding photographer Shiva, and Hamid, to help him identify the man. Hamid is certain based on the man's prosthetic leg which he lost in Syria, but others are not sure. Vahid and Shiva tie the man on a tree during the night, he confesses, but laments that he just had to do his job and protect the Ayatollah regime. Vahid leaves Eghbal a knife so that he can cut the rope and free himself, and then leaves with Shiva in the van. 

Despite his preposterous 20-year ban on filmmaking by the Iranian authorities, the director Jafar Panahi returned in big style with his 'guerilla-style', secretly filmed movie "It Was Just an Accident" to again criticize said regime, which won the Golden Palm in Cannes. Staying true to his minimalist, realistic style that depicts several layers in his society and features non-professional actors, reminiscent of Italian neorealism, the movie suffers from pacing issues, which makes it feel either overstretched or lacking a more versatille, richer content to keep the viewers attention. However, its sole concept is engaging: a man thinks he recognizes his tormentor from the time he was in prison. This plot was already explored in previous films, among others in the '96 Croatian film "Recognition" and Villeneuve's "Incendies", but rarely was it presented as a calm drama like here. It dwells on issues such as in dubio pro reo, fair trial and vigilante revenge, contemplating if this can constitute justice. It also sometimes has colorful little details that say a lot: when Vahid goes to the library to ask his friend for advice, a woman seemingly "accidentally" passes on the street, not wearing any headscarf. The wedding photographer Shiva also doesn't wear a headscarf, but puts one on while exiting the van on a street in another neigborhood, which can be seen as a commentary on how the Iranian headscarf policy is waning in certain liberal areas. In another sequence, two security guards catch the group doing something suspicious in the van, and demand a "gift" for keeping quiet about it. The groom doesn't have any cash, just a credit card, but one of the security guards already pulls out a credit card machine, ready to get bribed. The 10-minute interrogation scene, filmed in one take, is impressive, but the reveal is a bit questionable: if they had not been sure if the man was their tormentor, it would have made for a more compelling dilemma which doesn't offer easy solutions.

Grade:++

Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman; drama, USA, 1985; D: Volker Schlöndorff, S: Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, Stephen Lang, Kate Reid, Charles Durning, Jon Polito, Louis Zorich, Linda Kozlowski

New York. The 63-year old traveling salesman Willy Loman is not able to keep up with his work anymore, and hasn't achieved much in life. His two grown up sons visit him at his home: Happy and the 34-year old Biff who was Willy's hope to continue with the business, but never went to college, and is thus still unemployed. Willy and Biff always argue. Willy has hallucinations about his late brother. When Willy asks his boss Howard to work in the city because he cannot travel long trips anymore, but is fired. Willy's neighbor Charley borrows him money to complete the payment of his mortgage and claim ownership of the house. After a heated argument, where mom Linda scorns him, Biff says he is not meant to be a salesman and that he is not outstanding or special, but that he still loves his father. Willy commits suicide in the car, leaving the insurance money to his family. 

Volker Schlondorff's film adaptation of Arthur Miller's eponymous play, "Death of a Salesman" enjoys a very high reputation—among others, it has a perfect 100% fresh score among film critics on Rotten Tomatoes—but it is in reality still a little bit overrated and overhyped. Its themes about the deconstruction of the American Dream are still sharp and bitter, disputing the myth that one person can work diligently all their life and achieve financial success, and even contemplating about the disturbing notion that some people are simply not outstanding nor special, but just ordinary, just as the character Biff admits to his father Willy in the finale, but that even they are just normal human beings worthy of love and compassion. Miller displays the theme of capitalist discrimination and the ever-glooming threat of going extinct through poverty if a person is not successful, but Willy is a symbol for a double tragedy: he worked obediently all his life, and is still a failure, whereas this even takes a toll on his relationship with his sons, who are under pressure to compensate for his failure. The actors are excellent, especially Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich as Willy and Biff. The flashback where it is shown how Biff discovered his father cheated on his mother with another woman in a hotel room reveals a lot about his disappointment and their rift. However, the movie feels rushed and not that well written, even though better dialogue is expected when such talk-heavy stories are presented, whereas some melodramatic situations are so exaggerated and over-the-top in trying to force one tragedy after another in this family that it becomes even banal and unintentionally comical at times.

Grade:++

Red Poppies on Walls

Lulekuqët mbi Mure; war drama, Albania, 1976; D: Dhimitër Anagnosti, S: Strazimir Zaimi, Enea Zhegu, Proud Aifi, Timo Flock, Agim Qirjaqi, Kadri Roshi, Alfred Kote, Pavlina Mani

Tirana during the Italian Fascist occupation of Albania, World War II. Jaçe, Lelo, Tomi and Sulo are kids aged 12-13, living in an all-boys orphanage led by a principal who is a Fascist collaborator. They are woken up in the middle of the night to clean up anti-fascist slogans on walls in the street, but accidentally also wipe out a pro-fascist slogan with Mussolini on it. They spot a youngster, Aliu, shooting a Fascist on the street and running away. Since the caregiver often slaps them, one of the kid ties a rope in the orphanage, the caregiver trips down the stairs, breaking his arm. The kids don't want to snitch the perpetrator, so the administration punishes them with no food until they do. Sulo wants to escape during the night, but is shot on the wall by the Fascist police because it is a curfew. The Fascists decide to blame the caretaker and give kids food, trying to gain their sympathy. A teacher, Loni, gives a kid Communist leaflets to spread them. When three kids paint anti-fascist slogans on the orphanage, the principal expels them to the street. Aliu assassinates the principal.

Widely respected as one of the classics of Albanian cinema, Dhimiter Anagnosti's film adaptation of allegedly autobiographical elements of Petraq Qafëzezi's novel "The Orphanage", "Red Poppies on Walls" shows World War II from the Albanian perspective, which, in turn, is seen through the perspective of the 12-13-year old boys in an orphanage administrated by a Fascist principal, and thus the institution becomes a symbol for the Fascist occupation of Albania as a whole: from authoritarianism, imperialism, assimilation, the dilemma of whether to follow morals or orders, up to a denial of any kind of pluralism (all the boys have their hair cut semi-bald, in identical fashion), everything is presented here if the viewers are able to decipher them. Overlong, with a slow pace, and only sporadically showing a sense for being cinematic in a few frames, "Red Poppies on Walls" still manage to ignite the attention of the viewers thanks to its little details depicting life back in those days, even managing to keep the state-ordered Communist propaganda to the minimum. 

One such detail is the attempt at Italianization of the Albanian kids, when an Italian woman (Pavlina Mani) with a big hat is brought to be the new teacher in the classroom, and she tries to teach them how to sing in Italian, but then gives up and angrily leaves the institution due to disruption. One of the boys later on makes fun of her in front of his friends in the bedroom, by holding a carton on top of his head and imitating her dignified walk, saying in Italian: "I can't, I can't! Oh my God, it's impossible! Pasta, Luigi...!" After the prank in which the caregiver falls downstairs, the orphanage administration punishes them with no food until they reveal the perpetrator. The cook then laments to the caregiver how this is not correct behavior: "They are beaten with one hand, while the other takes away their food... Discipline does not mean hitting." - "It does and it doesn't". The Fascist principal holds these kind of exaggerated speeches in front of the kids: "Fascism cannot tolerate injustice! Fascism is the child of justice!... You will be grateful, because our efforts to grant you a better life never end!" In the sequence where the principal takes aim at teacher Loni (whom he deliberately misaddresses with an Italian version of his name, "Leone") in his office, questioning why he is opposing orders, Loni gives a powerful, intelligent reply: "When orders violate the basic principles of humanity, it is my duty to oppose them!" Even though the ending is a little bit unsatisfactory, and the character development is pushed in the background for the sake of a collective memory of a historic timeline, the movie grows on you the longer you watch it.

Grade:+++

A Minecraft Movie

A Minecraft Movie; fantasy comedy, USA, 2025; D: Jared Hess, S: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Sebastian Hansen, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Coolidge

Chuglass, Idaho. Steve loves mines, so he goes into one, finds Orb of Dominance and Earth Crystal, which combined create a portal that leads him to a cube-shaped world, Overworld. There, he is captured by Malgosha's evil piglins in Netherworld, so he sends his dog Dennis to hide the Orb and Crystal in Idaho, to prevent Malgosha to invade the Overworld. However, the Orb and the Crystal are found by Idahonians Garrett, Henry, Natalie and Dawn, who also enter into the Overworld. Together with a freed Steve, they battle against Malgosha's evil forces and win, saving Overworld. Then they all return back to Idaho. 

"A Minecraft Movie" is neither "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" nor even "Super Mario Bros. Movie", but is nonetheless still a solid and easily watchable video game film adaptation, with a few good gags that help lift it from other film adaptations which rank far less. It has a good, funny opening act, and one great gag at the end, but the entire 70 minute central segment is routine and standard. The opening act works, probably because it is set in the real world and is thus able to connect with some real-life situations in this fictional small town in Idaho, from a washed-up ex-champion video game player who, despite his machismo, wears a pink jacket, Garrett, played by Jason Momoa, up to the high school principal Marlene, played deliciously by Jennifer Coolidge. In one sequence, as Henry enlists into the high school, Marlene greets him with these ironic, revealing words: "You know, you're the first student to enroll here, ever since that article came out about the school rankings." Henry's sister Natalie is at first endearingly played by Emma Myers, hinting that this might lead to something more emotional later on. 

Unfortunately, once the human characters enter the artificial Overworld, the authors seem to lose their ground, and all that is left an empty collection of chase and action sequences, without much ingenuity or creativity. Momoa and comedian Jack Black spend the rest of the movie merely as a distraction from the thin, unimaginative plot. A lot of potentials are left underused. For instance, a cubic Overworld man exits through the portal into the real world, stumbles upon Marlene, and they spend the entire rest of the movie just sitting at a dinner date, but it all leads nowhere, and is just a waste of time. Coolidge is underused in this. Myers is also underused, since we barely find out anything about her that expands her initial character in the Overworld, as the movie puts its weight mostly on Henry, Garrett and Steve. This is unexplored talent right there, since Myers is much more charming then them. The nadir is reached in the infamous chicken jockey sequence, where a zombie baby is riding a chicken and fighting with Garrett in a boxing ring, which is ludicrous. Here and there, a few more 'proper' moments show up, among them also in a wonderful cliche-breaking joke near the finale, where Malgosha feigns she is weak and calls upon Steve to come closer so that she can tell him something, while he immediately sees through her and says: "Do you have a little knife that you will try to stab me with?" - "No, no, I'm too weak." He comes closer, she swings a knife at him, but he just slaps it out of her hand: "Come on!" If at least there were more inspired jokes like these, it would have made the movie much more fun. Though Steve's words aimed at Malgosha have some wisdom: "You're right. It is harder to create than to destroy. That's why cowards tend to choose the deuce."

Grade:+

Clockwise

Clockwise; comedy / road movie, UK, 1986, D: Christopher Morahan, S: John Cleese, Sharon Maiden, Alison Steadman, Stephen Moore, Penelope Wilton

Brian Stimpson is the headmaster of a high school obsessed with punctuality and discpline. He plans to travel to Norwich to chair the Headmasters' Conference, but due to a misunderstanding, he misses his train because it was at the wrong gate. Stimpson rushes back home, but his wife Gwenda already left, and cannot drive him. He stumbles upon Laura, his student, and persuades her to drive him in her car to Norwich. Along the way, the get into a lot of trouble, including hitting a police car, meeting Stimpson's former colleague Pat who also drives the car across the meadow, and landing in a monastery. Finally, Stimpson arrives at 5:00 pm and holds a speech at the conference, but is arrested by the police afterwards.

"Clockwise" is one of those movies that start with a great premise and then ruin it. The first 10 minutes are actually fun, showing the principal of a high school, Stimpson (very good John Cleese), obsessed with everyone being on time and respecting the clock, almost as some sort of commentary on excessive British discipline that needs to loosen up. He observes all the students from his window office, and then adresses some directly via his microphone connected to a loadspeaker: a student is lost in the high school exteriors, so Stimpson instructs him: "G-3, LeRoy!" When a professor sees him in the office, Stimpson scolds him: "The first step to knowing who we are, is knowing WHERE we are and WHEN we are!" After this intro, the main plot tangle then sets it, in which Stimpson plans to go to Norwich for a conference, but misses his train. This would have been a great opportunity to spoof his obsession with punctuality, get him out of balance and force him to become more human, as we see how he reacts to being late himself.

Unfortunately, the whole rest of the movie is not about his punctuality—but about his bad luck. And it simply isn't funny. The main road movie segment where his student, Laura, drives him to Norwich seems improvised, empty and lacking punchlines. Take, for instance, the moment where Stimpson meets a former friend, Pat, and persuades her to drive the car a bit. They miss their turn, so they turn on a next road, but then have to stop because it is blocked by cows. They continue driving on the meadow. But by the time the car gets stuck in the mud, the viewers realize the whole movie is stuck, since it simply doesn't know what to do with this concept. It is forced, contrived and banal. A missed opportunity. As one unwritten rule in comedy goes, even if a protagonist is stuck in a bad situation, he still needs to show some ingenuity and control over events at time, which is here absent. One amusing quote became famous, though. It's the scene where Laura and Stimpson lost their car and are stuck on the highway, she tries to be optimistic, but he goes: "It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand!"

Grade:+

The Swissmakers

Die Schweizermacher; comedy, Switzerland, 1978, D: Rolf Lyssy, S: Walo Lüönd, Emil Steinberger, Beatrice Kessler, Wolfgang Stendar

Zurich. Bodmer and Fischer are naturalization officials who visit immigrants at their homes and review if they are "worthy" to receive Swiss citizenship. They visit and secretly follow Italian Grimolli, married to a Swiss woman, who works at a pastry store. Bodmer also reviews German doctor Starke, who wants to open his own psychiatric clinic. Finally, there is a Yugoslav woman, Milena Vakulic, who works as a dancer, and who secretly starts a relationship with Fischer. Bodmer is nosy and very strict towards immigrants. Grimolli and Starke become citizens, while Bodmer is furious upon finding out that Fischer is in a relationship with Vakulic, presuming she wants to only use him to get her citizenship, but Fischer quits his job and leaves with Vakulic for Amsterdam. 

The highest grossing Swiss movie of the 20th century, a one that sold over 940,000 tickets at the local box office, "The Swissmakers" once again prove that popular local movies have a hard time reaching a universal appeal outside their borders. Slow, dry and not particularly funny, "The Swissmakers" seem dated today in its story, style and execution, but are still relevant in their theme of imigrants trying to obtain a Swiss citizenship, since this is a topic that envelops numerous Western countries up to this day. The director Rolf Lyssy satirizes the process in the form of two naturalization officials—the hardline, exclusionist Bodmer and the understanding, open-minded Fischer, who welcomes immigrants—but simply has no sense how to build up a gag. He misses so many potentials in here. The opening sequence is the only brilliant one: in a class, an official is holding a lecture about what traits an immigrant should posses if he or she want to obtain a Swiss citizenship, and the four apprentices mention these adjectives: "Solid", "Wonderful", "Incredible", "Super-loyal"... All the while the official is writing the letters on the blackboard, which all add up to one word in the end: "Swiss". The opening title then shows up, adding two more words above this word: "The Swiss-Makers". Clever. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie just gives up after that, and runs on autopilot the entire time. In one sympathetic scene, Bodmer is interviewing the boss of one of the applicants, Grimolli, who tells him: "Between us, Grimolli is a better Swiss than many who don't have to apply". Another good gag is when the naturalization commission questions Gimolli about the Swiss history: "If William Tell were alive today, whom would he shoot?" - "Gessler. Because if Tell was here, Gessler would be here, too." However, except for these mild jokes, the movie has little else to offer, exhausting itself with empty walks of Bodmer being nosy and spying on his clients during their private lives, which simply isn't that funny as the director thought it would be.

Grade:+

Jurassic World Rebirth

Jurassic World Rebirth; science-fiction action adventure, USA, 2025; D: Gareth Edwards, S: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert friend, Mahershala Ali, Manuel-Garcia Rulfo, Luna Blaise

Dinosaurs have retreated to enclaves around the equator, since most of the climate is unsuitable for them. Martin recruits Zora, Henry, Duncan and others to go to Suriname and extract blood from the largest dinosaur species which could help a pharmaceutical company develop a cure for a heart disease. They manage to get a sample from Mosasaurus in the Ocean, but it attacks their ship and it crashes on the coastline. The crew, together with a family they saved from a boat, now has to travel through the jungle by foot, while being attacked by various dinosaurs. They manage to reach the location of the former laboratory, a helicopter arrives, but a mutant alien-Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur destroys it. Luckily, the crew manages to escape on a boat via the ocean.

The 7th film in the "Jurassic Park" franchise is a solid reboot, watchable, but once again shows what a genius piece of work the original 1st movie was—all the sequels after it copied its elements and plot devices. Many things that were already seen since the 1st film are again rehashed: in the opening, an assistant is killed by a runaway dinosaur in the park / laboratory; a man is ecstatic upon seeing an Apatosaurus in the meadow; a predator dinosaur is hunting a kid in a basement; a man with a signal torch is waving at a giant dinosaur to distract it from attacking a group of people... A strange feeling is sensed with the last couple of "Jurassic Park" movies—despite all the efforts of the crew on the technical level, everything is routine, everything is mundane, since it lacks the one crucial ingredient: inspiration. "Rebirth" is a cash grab, empty and mechanical—after a week, can you seriously remember a single character except for Scarlett Johansson's?—but to the director's credit, three moments are exciting and really well directed. One of them is a sly "Jaws" reference, namely the sequence where a family is sailing on a ship in the Ocean, until it is capsized by a giant Mosasaurus, so they have to climb up on an upside down side of the ship. Another good one is when a crew member urinates in the jungle, a Velociraptor is slowly creeping up behind him, but just then a Pterodactyl descends from above and flies away with the Velociraptor, in a lucky break for the man. Another semi-good one is the sequence where three people paddle on a boat on the river, while a T-Rex is running after them—when the T-Rex is up to his neck in water, this would have been an ideal ending to the sequence, but the authors unfortunately decided to add the ridiculous idea of it diving under the water, ruining it with outlandish nonsense. The finale with two mutant dinosaurs borders on trash, going unnecessary into speculative monster fiction, concluding a movie that works in its three thrills, but is one-dimensional in many other aspects.

Grade:+

To Be or Not to Be

To Be or Not to Be; comedy, USA, 1983; D: Alan Johnson, S: Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Tim Matheson, José Ferrer, Charles Durning, Christopher Lloyd, George Gaynes

Warsaw, 1 9 3 9. Whenever actor Frederick Bronski does his "To Be or Not to Be" Hamlet monologue on stage, Lieutenant Andrei leaves his seat to have an affair with Bronski's wife Anna. This is interrupted when the Third Reich invades Poland, and several Polish soldiers flee to London from the Nazi occupation. In London, secret Nazi collaborator Siletski receives a list of Polish resistance members and heads off to Warsaw to hand it over to the Nazis. Andrei rushes back to Warsaw to stop him, and gets help from Frederick to disguises himself and his actors as Nazis to get the list from Siletski. When Nazi Colonel Erhardt is involved and Adolf Hitler shows up to attend a play at the theatre, Frederick and his group of actors manage to escape by disguising Frederick as Hitler and leaving with the group on a plane to London. 

41 years after Lubitsch's excellent comedy classic "To Be or Not to Be", Mel Brooks produced and starred in this remake—it is unnecessary, with the only improvement that it is in color, but the fact that it isn't a disaster is already something. Just like most remakes of comedies, this one also suffers from the problem that the viewers familiar with the original will have a feeling as if someone is just repeating great gags from the 1st film, which will make the entire story predictable, since numerous sequences are just a copy/paste of Lubitsch's film. However, even in this re-heating up of a frozen dinner, this film manages to extract a few charming moments. Directed lazily by Alan Johnson, the story works mostly thanks to an energetic cast, though Mel Brooks overacts his role as Frederick way too often. The opening sequence is sympathetic since Frederick and Anna are performing on stage and speaking Polish, before the movie switches to English, as the narrator points it out by breaking the fourth wall, and one new, original joke is refreshing and welcome—in a satirical play in the theatre, Frederick performs as Adolf Hitler, and says this to the audience: "I only want peace... A piece of Poland!" This snappy joke reminds a bit of Brooks previous film, "The Producers". Unfortunately, the authors did not have that many more original ideas which would warrant rehashing this story again, which feels too much like it is a slave to the original. Among the cast, the best performance was delivered by the excellent Charles Durning as Nazi Colonel Erhardt, who is both funny and childishly naive at the same time.

Grade:++

The Stress is Killing Me

The Stress is Killing Me; comedy, USA, 2024; D: Tom Carroll, S: Carly Christopher, Greyson Berry, April Hartman, Barry Landers, Lisa Lucas

New Mexico. For their 20th college reunion, eight ex-students rent a house for the week, but confide they do not like their jobs. As a dare, they all decide to try out their dream jobs for a week. Kiki, who still has a crush on Jason, wants to try it out as a yoga teacher. Jason tries out to be a private detective, but nobody wants to hire him online. Todd tries it out as a film director, but is not satisfied with his friends as actors, nor with the budget. Will owns five restaurants, but doesn't know how to cook, so he wants to try it out, but his meals are terrible. Marcie tries it out as a sex therapist, Paul as a priest. Eventually, they all give up. However, Todd makes a charming video about his love for his wife Sue, which saves their marriage. Will learns how to cook decently. Marcie saves her own sex life by falling in love with Paul. 

A harmless, mild comedy on the rift between dreams and affordable jobs, independent film "The Stress is Killing Me" is not that inspired, and is overall more sympathetic in its characters than it is truly funny. The concept of eight ex-students trying out their dream jobs for a week is interesting, but not that well developed, since they only try it out inside the safety of their circle of this rented house, instead of actually trying it out in the real world, with people outside their comfort zone. As such, the flaw in the concept is that they just create an echo chamber where they praise each other, which doesn't quite lead to some outrageously spicy situations that the viewers hoped for. The most was achieved from the cast, who are enthusiastic in their roles, especially Carly Christopher as Kiki, who loosens up her uptight attitude. There is too much empty walk and too little successful jokes that really ignite the comic mood, but some do manage to stand out. There are several charming jokes in the movie, and in one of them Paul tries out his dream job as a priest and tries to hold a sermon in front of his seven friends: "Jesus died for our sins. Did it work? Let's say he nailed it!" In another, Donna reads out online reviews of her attempts at a painting: "If that's fruit, my ass is a grapefruit", while Marcie admits she is not a good sex therapist: "The only person I'm having sex with right now is myself." The conclusion that sometimes even dream jobs are not what we truly hoped for, but that they still manage to help us out in little solutions in the real world is interesting, which compensates for some lesser moments.

Grade:++

Down and Dirty

Brutti, sporchi e cattivi; black comedy, Italy, 1976, D: Ettore Scola, S: Nino Manfredi, Francesco Anniballi, Franco Merli, Maria Luisa Santella, Maria Bosco, Adriana Russo, Marco Marsili, Giuseppe Paravati 

Giacinto self-mutilated his left eye and managed to extract a million lire from an insurance company. He lives in a shack on hill overlooking Rome, together with his wife, senile mother in a wheelchair and twenty relatives, sons, their wives, and children. They all get by through swindling or prostitution. Giacinto refuses to share his wealth with the family. One day Giacinto brings a buxom prostitute, Iside, to the shack to live with them, and sleeps in the same bed as his wife. The family has enough and decides to kill him through rat poison in spaghetti, but he throws up and manages to survive. As revenge, Giacinto then sets the shack on fire and sells the estate to another family. After a while, Giacinto reconciles with his family and resumes living with them in a new shack, returning to a status quo.  

Ettore Scola directed two films back to back which are total opposites: while his next film “A Special Day”, filmed a year later, is subtle, sophisticated and calm, his 1976 black comedy “Down and Dirty” is dirty, crude, wild and embraces the raw passion among the lower class. The only link that connects these two separate films is Scola's fascination with people on the margins—the outsiders. “Down and Dirty” paraphrases Moliere's “The Miser” about a cheapskate, Giancito (a funny-vile Nino Manfredi), refusing to share his wealth with his family, though it is exaggerated to a grotesque in this edition. Several interpretations can be made about this family on the absolute bottom of lower class, from plutocracy refusing to help the poor, up to a collective allegory about people having to share their living space together despite all the differences and disagreements. The movie opens with a virtuoso 4-minute scene in which the camera makes a 360 degree turn inside the dirty home of this family as they wake up in the morning, from Giancito's bed, through all the beds of his twenty family members, until the camera returns back to Giancito's bed and then continues making another 360 degree turn, as one guy enters the house with a motorcycle.

Scola enjoys spending time with this ‘forbidden’ class, showing them as direct, but also full of life. The movie abounds with ‘naughty’ jokes that are so over-the-top that nobody could be angry at them. In one sequence, Giancito spots Dora, a wife of one of his sons, having sex with another guy, a crossdresser who takes her from behind as she is shampooing her hair, so Giancito blackmails her to have sex with him (!) during the night as a favor for not telling her husband about it. After Giancito brings a buxom prostitute, Iside (a wonderful Maria Luisa Santella), to the shack, and falls asleep during the night, one of his sons arrives to the bed, takes Iside’s underwear off and starts having sex with her from behind, as she opens her eyes, turns her head towards him and asks: “Who are you?” - “It’s alright, I am one of the locals.” Giancito even gives an advice to guests in a tavern where he eats with Iside: "Kick you wife in the butt and get yourself a good whore!" It's madness, but it's an elevated madness. Scola spoofs the genre of Italian neorealism which depicted poverty and makes a black comedy out of it, adding erotic and ridiculous moments to show how poor people are much more realistically shown in these kind of honest, uncensored films. Despite an unsatisfying ending and a meandering storyline that totally dismisses the classic 3-act structure, “Down and Dirty” has an almost therapeutic vulgarity.

Grade:+++

Surogat / The Play

Surogat; animated experimental short, Croatia, 1961; D: Dušan Vukotić / Igra; animated-live action experimental short, Croatia, 1962; D: Dušan Vukotić

"Surogat": a man arrives at a beach, takes small triangle patches and inflates them into objects, such as a tent, a barbecue grill and a volley ball. 

He also inflates a woman from them, but she falls for another, muscular man. When the first man unplugs the plug, the woman deflates, and the muscular man deflates himself. The man inflates his own road to drive back home, but then the car steps on a nail, and the man falls and deflates himself. / "The Play": A boy and a girl draw on papers in a room, and their drawings come to life. The boy starts teasing the girl by creating more and more disrupting drawings, including of a tank and a rocket, until the kids end up fighting for real, and start to cry.

In a local 2 0 2 0 poll by Croatian film critics determining best movies of Croatian cinema, Dusan Vukotic's short animated experimental film "Surogat" (also translated as "The Substitute") was ranked as number 1 in the animation category, probably due to the fame that it won an Oscar for best animated short film. While such a reputation is overhyped (Blazekovic's "The Elm-Chanted Forest" is easily superior), "Surogat" is an interesting and creative little film: 26 years before "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and its concept of the Holodeck and 39 years before "The Sims", Vukotic was able to dwell on the issue of artificial reality and man surrounding himself with fake environment as a compensation for real life. The abstract and vague, but still sufficiently articulated storyline without dialogue of a man who inflates triangle patches on his summer vacation to create himself a simulated environment, even going so far to inflate his own woman, and even to "pump up" her breasts a little bit more, is both grim in its contemplation of self-sufficient isolation as well as full of wacky jokes (the man doesn't have any place to hide on the beach in the open, so he simply digs up a hole in the ground, hides his head in it, and then exchanges his ordinary underwear for a speedo; as he packs, he even deflates the entire sea, picks it up and puts it with the luggage in his car, and then inflates a whole road for himself). The Picasso-style animation is annoying, and the movie clearly needed more humor, but it still has enough sharpness and wit to surprise the viewers, even contemplating if the anthroposphere could one day even outnumber the biosphere.

"The Play" is also very creative. It consists of a live-action segment of a boy and a girl drawing in a room, and their drawings coming to life. For instance, the girl draws a little girl on her paper, but the boy mischievously draws a mouse which walks from his paper to the girl's paper, scaring her. What starts out as a tease out of boredom, quickly develops into a competition, a tit-for-tat, until it practically develops into a real animated "war of drawings": the boy draws a lion to attack the drawing of a little girl, but the girl draws a house for the little girl to hide from the lion; the girl then even draws a gun, which allows the drawn little girl to shoot at the drawn lion, etc. In the end, even tanks and rockets are drawn, indicating the dangers of aggressive human behavior going out of hand, and conflicts becoming violent beyond any measure. Due to such a pacifist tone, the movie was also hailed, and manages to assemble just enough playfulness and ingenuity to keep the viewers' attention during its running time of 10 minutes.

Grade:+++

KPop Demon Hunters

KPop Demon Hunters; computer-animated fantasy, USA, 2025; D: Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, S: Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong, Lee Byung-hun

Rumi, Mira and Zoey are not only stars of the K-pop girl group Huntr/x, but also Demon Hunters, saving the world from demon invaders and trying to strengthen the Honmoon, an invisible wall separating Earth from the demon world led by Gwi-Ma. But five demons, led by Jinu, take the form of the cute group Saja Boys, which quickly gains so many fans with their songs that they start overshadowing the Huntr/x. Jinu admits to Rumi that he was once a human, but collaborated with the demons to save himself from poverty. However, in the final battle, Jinu sacrifices himself and helps Rumi, Mira and Zoey defeat the demon invasion.

Maggie Kang's feature length animated debut film was a bullseye due to its charming and effervescent blend of 'magical girl' anime with K-pop iconography, reulting in an amusing film. "KPop Demon Hunters" is filled with wacky jokes and crazy situations which give it spark: the opening sequence on the airplane, where the girls are gorging on food, Rumi cuts to the chase and confronts the suspicious flight attendant ("You're a demon, right?") while the fight with the demons is choreographed like a music spot in tune to their song "How It's Done" is brilliant, establishing a wonderful intro into this world. Other jokes are just plain silly, but they work, nontheless: for instance, when they first spot the Saja Boys walking in slow motion, and one of the guys shows his abbs, Zoey has a caricature, animesque facial expression with popcorn falling out from her eyes, while Mira is eating said popcorn from the box. Unfortunately, only Rumi is given enough time to turn into a three-dimensional character, while Rumi and Zoey are mostly absent as characters in the second half of the film, except that they fight. The finale is kind of obfuscated, standard fighting for these kind of movies, whereas the pacing is fast, but too rushed at times, meaning that it needed more courage to slow down, as to give viewers more time to absorb all this and enjoy the setting. Refreshingly, nothing is presented as black and white—the key demon henchmen, Jinu, was a human before who sold his soul to the demons to save himself from hunger and poverty, meaning he joined them out of necessity, not because he is evil per se; whereas Rumi, even though she is a demon hunter, is half-demon herself, since her father was one, showing that the lines can sometimes be blurred and people can have several contradictory motives due to several circumstances. A fun and energetic movie, with occasional singing sequences. 

Grade:++

Passing Days / Tup-Tup

Idu dani; animated experimental short, Croatia / Italy, 1969; D: Nedjeljko Dragić / Tup-Tup; animated experimental short, Croatia / Italy, 1972; D: Nedjeljko Dragić

"Passing Days": a man sits in his home. A door opens, police officers randomly enter, beat him up and leave. His chair becomes water, so he stands up. A king rides him like a horse, a painter sells him worthless painting and takes his money. His wife cheats on him with other men. He observes war through the window. A woman gives him an apple, he bites it, but his teeth fall out. He opens the door, and only a graveyard awaits him... "Tup-Tup": a man wants to read newspapers in his bed, but is annoyed by loud thumping noises from the apartment above him. His clock explodes and he finds himself out in the field, in his pajamas. He wants to rob a sleeping man with a gun, but the latter's giant hands chase him and flick him away. He keeps running, still hearing the noise, until he sets the whole city on fire. There is finally peace and quiet, but then the noise returns. He digs his own grave, wants to shoot himself, but a giant frog emerges from the gun. After kissing it, the frog turns into a woman.

In a local 2 0 2 0 poll by Croatian film critics determining best movies of Croatian cinema, two of Nedjeljko Dragic's short animated films were picked as among the ten best films in the category of animated films: "Passing Days" and "Tup-Tup". Both are experimental films with a running time of 10 minutes each, have no dialogue, and both share the same topic: ordinary man lost in the madness of modern society. Both are good, if the viewers can enjoy surreal, abstract films without a story, built only on absurd symbolism, yet none really managed to stimulate on a higher level. Experimental films often age the worst, and these two films confirm it. "Passing Days" is the better version of this theme, showing a caricature-drawn man in a white background, experiencing life through his home. Weird, bizarre episodes show up, and they often seem just like underdeveloped ideas or attempts at obfuscation of the dirrector, without a more clear grip at how to articulate all this. Two great jokes: the protagonist opens the door and sees two men carrying a horse by his two legs on the front and back, while the horse also carries a man riding him. Another one is the brilliant satirical image of the man being pulled between two groups, one purple the other green, while his body is evenly split between these two colors, symbolically showing how two ideologies are fighting over trying to recruit everyone among their ranks, even people who do not want to be aligned. The ending with the graveyard being seen from the door implies a harsh truth: life is a mess, chaos and full of unwanted choices, and then it's all over. 

"Tup-Tup" takes the often trope of a person who cannot sleep during the night because of someone constantly making noise, but seems to lose its focus and drown in the sea of abstractionism. It traverses to a wide range of often incomprehensible episodes in the open, without much sense to find the right balance between satire and allegory. There are some amusing moments (a wind blows the windows away from the residential building, leaving it just a blank rectangle; the protagonist berating a protestor holding a sign so aggressively that even the face on said sign runs away from it) and some fan service (a woman whose large breasts punch the protagonist like in a boxing match; the protagonist dreaming he is inside the sea of large breasts), and the same motive of a grave at the end, signalling how people are simply exhausted by modern times and pointless existence, yet they cannot quite compensate for a lack of ability to better articulate all this, to be more understandable to the audience. The fact that "Tup-Tup" was nominated for an Oscar for best short animated film demonstrates again that sometimes award ceremonies are too lazy to simply find better movies: Croatia has better cartoons.

Grade:++

Shok

Shok; war drama short, Kosovo / UK, 2015; D: Jamie Donoughue, S: Lum Veseli, Andi Bajgora, Eshref Durmishi, Kushtrim Sheremeti, Fisnik Ademi

Kosovo. A car stops at an old bicycle lying on the road, and Petrit exits to ride it. He remembers what happened over 15 years ago: during the Kosovo War, Petrit was a 13-year old who drove on the bicycle of his school friend Oki. Petrit sold paper used to wrap cigarettes to Serb soldiers, but one day one of them simply confiscated Oki's bicycle to give it to his nephew, and thus Oki ended his friendship with Petrit. When their bus is stopped and searched by Serb soldiers, Petrit lies and takes the blame that an Albanian book found at Oki's bag is actually his, and thus Oki is spared from a punishment. The Serb paramilitary arrives one day and orders Petrit's family to take their stuff and leave their house in one direction, and if anyone turns around, he will be shot. A Serb boy passes by riding Oki's bicycle, Oki turns around—and is shot by a Serb paramilitary. Petrit keeps walking without turning around to look at his corpse.

Excellent short drama film "Shok" manages in only 21 minutes of its running time to illustrate a whole three-dimensional depiction of this era and area—and it does so without ever feeling forced or heavy handed. The genuine feel is owed mostly to the tightly written and directed storyline by British director Jamie Donoughue, based on memories of one of its actors, Eshref Durmishi, depicting an episode from the Kosovo War in the 90s, but also thanks to realistic and surprisingly competent performances by the two leading actors, boys Lum Veseli and Andi Bajgora, who never overreact. Several movies tried depicting the bloody Yugoslav Wars from the 90s, but never managed to hit the right note because they invented events and tried to force its messages, yet "Shok" is one of the rare ones that managed to do it the right way because it feels authentic: from the dirty roads, poor houses, up to the search of the Serb paramilitary of a bus, where they find a book in Albanian and shout at the boy that "this isn't Albania", the events grip and have weight and intelligence. 

The narrative is smooth, sharp and modern, not wasting a single scene: the grown up Petrit rides on a bicycle in the present, and then there is an elegant match cut to him as a 13-year old boy on a bicycle in the flashback segment. The movie talks about friendship, integrity and innocence in the first half, and then about loss of these in the second half, when the dark ending sets in. The finale depicting the deportation and forced displacement by the Serb paramilitary is chilling, both concise and restrained at the same time, and still emotional in the final scenes. In the moment where Petrit is ordered to just walk forward and is not allowed to turn around or he will be shot, while Oki is behind him, the movie shows a paraphrasing of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth—but with a bitter, painful twist. Is he guilty for losing his integrity or was it a necessary reaction to survive himself? Upon the first viewing, you respect the movie for its efficient storytelling. Upon the second viewing, you appreciate it even more for its humanity.

Grade:+++

Ecstasy

Extase; erotic drama, Czechia, 1933; D: Gustav Machatý, S: Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Mog, Zvonimir Rogoz, Leopold Kramer

Emil enters his house carrying his newly wed wife Eva in his arms. She awaits their first wedding night in bed, but he falls asleep on his chair. Eva feels neglected in their marriage, as her passion is not fulfilled since Emil is uninterested. Eva files for divorce and hides at her father's place. While swimming naked, her horse runs away with her clothes on the saddle, but it is stopped by Adam, who gives Eva her clothes back. Eva later has sex with him in his house. Emil meets Adam and drives him in his car. Emil commits suicide with a gun in a hotel, and Eva sees his corpse. She later does not go with Adam on a train. 

The most famous Czech film of the first half of the 20th century, "Ecstasy" gained an almost mythical reputation due to its hyped erotic scenes which caused a scandal—the gimmick worked back then, but today the viewers can only chuckle at how timid the two erotic sequences are, and thus the intensity of the viewing experience has decreased. The script allegedly had only 5 pages and it shows, since the drama sequences are heavily underwritten, overstretched and full of empty walk, though the director Gustav Machaty shows a surprising amount of ideas, from unusual camera angles up to symbolic images (a miniature statue of Cupid in Eva's bedroom as she gets horny; Eva's horse runs away, carrying her clothes, to meet another horse at a barn, belonging to Adam, implying how their fates intermingle...), though some border on pretentious self-indulgance (a fly stuck on a flypaper; after suicide, the man falls in exaggerated manner backwards). Eva swimming naked in a lake became one of the icons of cinema, and the story has sympathy for her sensual plight, trapped in sexless marriage, which became Hedy Lamarr's most famous role, despite her objections. The most fascinating moment is found somewhere in the middle of the film, as Eva's face is seen upside-down in close-ups, as she is experiencing an orgasm in bed with Adam—the whole sequence is actually very timid, but back then it was unheard off for early cinema, and thus this spark of audacity and artistic rebellion of the authors can be sensed even up to this day.  

Grade:++

Late Shift

Heldin; drama, Switzerland / Germany, 2025; D: Petra Volpe, S: Leonie Benesch, Sonja Riesen, Selma Aldin, Alireza Bayram, Ali Kandaş

Floria is a nurse at a hospital. She arrives via a bus to a late night shift and is exhausted by having so many patients: Mr. Lau is waiting for the results of his scan, but the doctor leaves without telling him, so Floria begs him to wait until tomorrow; her assistant, Amelie, is too slow; a rich man has pancreatic cancer and paid for a priviliged treatment, but is angry that he did not get his tea on time, so Floria throws his watch out the window in anger; a woman goes out of her room with an oxygen tank to smoke, which distracts Floria, who thus accidentally gives Mr. Wong the wrong medicine, causing him an allergy; an old woman, for whom Floria didn't have time to take care of until the end, dies on her bed... Exhausted, Floria ends her shift, goes into the bus and heads back home.

A grim and realistic insight into the understaffed and overworked lives of nurses at a hospital, "Late Shift" plays out like a feature length episode from the TV series "ER", showing a day in life of the main heroine Floria, played very well by Leonie Benesch. The director and screenwriter Petra Volpe builds the story on raw, naturalistic images, and with a furious pacing that is congruent with the task of Floria who has to rush from patient to patient to get everything done, but does so with measure, refusing to go overboard or exaggerate things to seize attention of the viewers. Everything is built on small, unassuming details, but it does feel a bit bland and schematic in the end, almost like a collection of random episodes which do not lead to a particular point in the end. Despite this incomplete and disconnected approach, the film works, and it is interesting to watch Floria taking care of so many patients. The opening is already indicative, as a male nurse holds an old woman uptight, on her feet, as Floria takes the woman's dirty underwear down, and then throws it into trash. For them, there is no time or room for feeling disgust, everything is formal, cold and mechanical, to get the patient ready on their bed and perform a surgery or just a screening. Volpe creates a realistic film with restrained style, and hints at general problem of underfunding and underappreciation of the health system. 

Grade:++