Throw Momma from the Train

Throw Momma from the Train; black comedy, USA, 1987; D: Danny DeVito, S: Billy Crystal, Danny DeVito, Kim Greist, Anne Ramsey, Kate Mulgrew, Branford Marsalis, Rob Reiner, Oprah Winfrey

Los Angeles. Novelist Larry Donner hates his ex-wife Margaret who stole his manuscript, published it and got a bestseller. Larry is a lecturer at a writing course, and his student Owen misunderstands their conversation when Larry advises him to go watch Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train", and assumes that is a signal that Owen should kill Larry's ex-wife, and that he will in return kill Owen's unbearable mother. Margaret indeed disappears from a cruise voyage in Hawaii, and Owen now asks Larry to keep his end of the "deal". Larry refuses to kill Owen's mom, and even saves her from falling off a train. Margaret reappears since she only slipped from the ship into the sea, but survived. A year later, Larry writes a crime novel based on his misadventures with Owen.

Danny DeVito's feature length debut film as a director, "Throw Momma from the Train" is arguably the best film he directed, and is underrated. Filled with several delicious little jokes, black humor, inspired ideas and vitality, this is a strong comedy film from the 80s, though it unfortunately falls apart in the chaotic, aimless last third. Billy Crystal is excellent as the novelist Larry, as is Anne Ramsey in one of her last roles as the irritating, unbearable mom (but the problem is that her character is underwritten, without any more elaborate "acting scenes" to find out more about her personality than just shouting and being a maniac), whereas DeVito shows a lot of directing finesse in crafting careful scene transitions: for instance, Larry is watching his ex-wife on TV in the Oprah Winfrey show, as there is a cut to another TV with said show, watched by mom who turns around and shouts, as the camera drives back across the room to go to Owen in the next room. In another scene, Owen interrupts Larry's date in an amusement park and asks if he liked his crime story, but Larry replies with: "No!" Cut to the next scene of Larry in bed, his phone ringing, he picks it up, as Owen's voice is heard: "Why not?" Cut to another time jump, as we see Owen and Larry sitting on a bench outside a store, as Larry explains why his story doesn't work due to a lack of motive.

After a wild ride, a car slams into a tree and stops, the camera pans to the right, and the white picket fences "dissolve" into white bars of a jail in the next scene. There is aesthetic in these scene transitions. Some situations are misguided—Owen imagining stabbing mom with scissors in the ear is bad; Owen hiding behind a couch as Margaret has sex with her gardener could have worked if DeVito simply ditched the stupid idea of said gardener "barking" like a dog to arouse her, for some reason. The dialogue also isn't as witty as it could have been, since Larry and Owen are novelists, and is instead rather improvised and obvious. Still, the first 2/3 of the film are a lot of fun, without any 'empty walk', full of playful allusions to Hitchcock's style. Unfortunately, the final third really does not know what to do with this story—it wants to pretend that Larry will kill Owen's mom, but is ultimately too scared to go this dark route, and thus just runs around in circles, backing out, not sure what it should do. The whole last third is a giant 'copout' in slow-motion, bringing the concept to a dead end. Despite this anticlimactic finale, "Throw Momma from the Train" has so many merits in the first half, that it deserves to be seen. One little episode of an agent, played by Rob Reiner, is wonderfully cynical: "I handle writers, Larry, not artists. You go be an artist. Let the rest of the world make a living!"

Grade:++

Clean Slate

Clean Slate; crime comedy, USA, 1994, D: Mick Jackson, S: Dana Carvey, Valeria Golino, Michael Gambon, Kevin Pollak, Jayne Brook, Olivia d'Abo, James Earl Jones, Michael Murphy, Angela Paton, Michael Monks, Bryan Cranston

Every time he falls asleep, private detective Maurice Pogue forgets everything what happened yesterday and thus has to re-learn as much info as he can from his tape recorder. He is an ex-LAPD cop who has to testify against criminal Cornell on Thursday, who killed Pogue's girlfriend Sarah in a car explosion. However, a woman introduces herself as Sarah and gains Pogue's trust. Little by little, Pogue investigates and interviews LAPD colleagues Rosenheim and District Attorney Dolby. It turns out Cornell is after an ancient coin he stole from a museum, and which Pogue hid, but gives it to Sarah. Pogue however realizes that Sarah is actually Beth, secretly working for Dr. Doover, who exploits Pogue's amnesia to get the coin. Beth has a change of heart and decides to help Pogue. After testifying on court against Cornell and retrieving the coin, Pogue gets his memory back and re-starts his relationship with Beth.

Why does Nolan's "Memento" work, while the crime comedy "Clean Slate" doesn't? Maybe because a drama has the benefit of the doubt of not needing a point after each scene, since it can "bluff" with contemplation, while a comedy has the burden of requiring a set-up and a punchline continuously. Both films feature protagonists with amnesia after a traumatic accident, who search for clues of their enemy, but develop in different styles and moods. "Clean Slate" has some moments of cinematic literacy thanks to director Mick Jackson, but its script is hopelessly stale, lukewarm, bland, overstretched, without any sense how to conjure up a good joke. Dana Carvey is sympathetic as the private detective with amnesia, Pogue, and one wishes he was given something with better inspiration and ingenuity to reach his full potentials. There is not a single brilliant gag that stands out, everything is just okey. The actors all give it their best, including James Earl Jones and Michael Gambon as villain Cornell, who is missing his right thumb (after the trial, a reporter tells him his appearance got a "thumbs down"), yet there needs to be a reason and a goal to them, which are absent.

The director Jackson has more success with certain cinematic techniques than with jokes. For instance, in one scene, Pogue takes a magnifying glass and spots a sign behind a half-torn photo of him, saying "Police Aca...", which is followed by a match cut to said sign in full, "Police Academy", which Pogue visits. In another scene, a wall painting of a faceless Mona Lisa "dissolves" to the same outline of Sarah's (Valeria Golino) face as she sleeps in bed. And after a betrayal, the camera zooms out of Pogue's face to a wider shot, revealing the poster of a film: "A Man Betrayed". These are nice touches. But the storyline required a better sense for shaping humor, since huge 85mm close-ups of the actors' faces can only go so far. The best joke is probably the scene where Pogue is running away from his enemies on a street, and in order to hide the ancient coin from the museum, he simply inserts it into a parking meter and runs away, to retrieve it later. Other jokes fare less. The fact that Pogue forgets everything each day gets annoying at times, especially in the forced, cringe court testimony where he stalls in the most cliche ways. It is perplexing that "Clean Slate" only becomes a good movie 68 minutes into its running time, during the betrayal 'plot twist'. Why did it take so long? It is strange for a comedy that its serious film noir elements would have worked much better on its own than in tandem with its comedy elements.

Grade:+

Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Mission: Impossible – Fallout; action thriller, USA, 2018; D: Christopher McQuarrie, S: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin

Impossible Mission Force (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt, and his associates Luther and Benji, receive a new assignment: the mad ex-British agent Solomon Lane is in jail, but his terrorist forces, the Syndicate, restructured into the Apostles, a shady organization with a new manifesto that wants to destroy the old world order through three nuclear explosions using smuggled plutonium. Ethan is assigned a new partner, CIA agent Walker. Traveling to Paris, Ethan contacts the White Widow, who will give him the plutonium ores if he releases Lane. Ethan complies, but refuses to hand over Lane, and then tricks Walker into admitting he actually colluded with the Apostles and Lane. At a finale in Kashmir, where the Apostles want to detonate two nuclear bombs to poison the water for a billion people, Ethan defeats and kills Walker, while Luther and Benji de-activate the bombs. A wounded Ethan is visited by his ex-wife Julia.

When an action film turns into a franchise spanning several sequels, the suspense inevitably deflates—after all, a hero can plausibly survive an impossibly dangerous situation only so many times before it becomes routine. As was the case with the James Bond film series, the 6th "Mission: Impossible" film is also stuck in this dilemma: it became a formulaic mold, a set of mandated, predictable outcomes dictated by the committee. Its action scenes are excellent, and are the only area where the authors were given a free rein to be wildly creative; however, its writing, directing and characters never go beyond the safe territory. "Fallout" gained fame because it received an incredible 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest rated "Mission: Impossible" film on that website, but overall, one really wonders what is there to decipher beyond good. The subplot involving Ethan Hunt's encounter with his ex-wife Julia, who has to have a secret identity as to not be in danger from enemies trying to attack her, is good, but it never becomes sweepingly emotional as it could have been. 

The motivation of the villains, the Apostles, is again vague and unclear, as it is never quite clear what exactly would incite them to become so loyal to their cause, nor what they would gain from it—since it is always safe to simply use some terrorists than to actually engage with evil in the real world, where war criminals rule entire countries. The 3-minute scene of Ethan and Walker jumping from a plane in decompression suits, Walker falling unconscious, Ethan saving him and ejecting their parachutes to land on the rooftop of a building in Paris, filmed in one take, is amazing, practically virtuoso directed. The fight in the public restroom is also extremely energetic and superfast. The chase sequence of Ethan on a motorcycle across Paris is a thrill ride. But after a while, this all becomes somehow mechanical, almost on autopilot, as there is no deeper substance. Just one example: a captured villain wakes up, handcuffed to a hospital bed, and watches with glee the TV news of how his henchmen detonated nuclear explosions on three religious holy sites (Mecca, Jerusalem, Vatican), reveals some secret information to Ethan, until, in a plot twist, it is revealed that the hospital room was just a fake observation room to trick him, as the TV news were false and there were no nuclear explosions. The safely played "Mission: Impossible" would, of course, not want to go there to explore such a complicated scenario. But could you imagine how much braver (and better) the story would have been if it actually did?

Grade:++

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner; drama, USA, 2007; D: Marc Forster, S: Khalid Abdalla, Homayoun Ershadi, Shaun Toub, Atossa Leoni, Saïd Taghmaoui, Zekiria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada

Kabul, 1 9 7 8. Amir (10) is friends with Hassan (8), whose father is Ali, servant of Amir's father, Agha Sahib, a wealthy man. They fly kites. Amir feels his father never forgave him that Amir's mother died at childbirth. A bully, Assef, and his two associates threatens them, but Hassan stands up to them. As a punishment, Assef rapes Hassan in an alley, while Amir observes everything but is too much of a coward to intervene. Plagued by guilt, Amir wants his father to fire Ali and Hassan from their household. After the Saur Revolution, communist takeover, and the Soviet invasion, Agha and Amir flee the country to a Pakistani town, and later to California. Amir wants to become a writer and marries Soraya, daughter of former Afghan general Taheri. Agha dies. Amir travels to Peshawar, where he finds out Hassan was executed by the Taliban, and that he was his brother, since his father Agha had an affair with Ali's wife. Amir is childless, but he travels to Kabul, finds Sohrab, Hassan's son, adopts him and brings him to California.

Excellent adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's eponymous novel, "Kite Runner" is a bitter depiction and chronicle of Afghanistan's dark ages, from the communist to Taliban takeover, seen through the eyes of a refugee from that place who settled in the US. The director Marc Forster shows all these painful, sometimes unpleasant themes in a very sensitive, emotional and humanistic way, though, thereby imbibing it with sophistication and intelligence. The first half, playing out in Kabul of the 70s, is a rare reconstruction of Afghan life before the madness, showing several details (women without veil, people owning music records, cinemas playing "The Magnificent Seven"...), and friendship between the two boys, Amir and Hassan. One little dialogue between them is already a philosophical contemplation on the futility of cruelty, when Hassan asks Amir about the story he wrote: "Why did he have to kill his wife?" - "Because he will cry, and each of his tears will turn into a pearl." - "Yes, but why couldn't he have simply smelled an onion?" Problems already arise along the ethnic lines, as Amir is Pashtun, while Hassan is Hazara, which will lead to betrayal. 

The potentially gruesome scene where bully Assef, with the help of his two associates, rapes Hassan in an alley is done with maximum measure and subtlety possible, never showing anything explicitly and lasting only 10 seconds. But it becomes a turning point, since Amir observed this the whole time, but was too much of a coward to intervene. His guilt will follow him and shape his life for the rest of the film, until he undergoes an attempted redemption. The standout performance here is by the brilliant actor Homayoun Ershadi who plays Armin's father Agha, who has integrity, honor and ethics. For instance, he is staunchly against religious fundamentalism of the mullahs, who claim drinking alcohol is a sin: "You'll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots... They do nothing but thumb their prayer beads and recite a book written in a tongue they don't even understand... All this talk about sinning is making me thirsty!", as he triumphantly drinks his brandy to finish the conversation. When an Afghan truck filled with refugees is stopped at a border, and a Soviet Russian soldier asks for "half an hour alone" with some man's wife in exchange for letting them pass, Agha again stands up and protests against this lack of morals, showing his sense for justice even during crisis situations. The second half, playing out in the US, shows a grown-up Amir maturing to understand his behavior he could not comprehend as a child, showing remorse. Forster directs the whole storyline with remarkable elegance and fluency, with several sharp observations (gender apartheid in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan; bully Assef growing up into a paedophile, but having complete immunity because he aligned himself with the Taliban, showing their moral hypocrisy; the clash between civility in civilization and barbaric primitivism in extremism...), all leading up to an impressive achievement that finds its ideal balance even during scenes that could have been controversial, but ultimately weren't.

Grade:+++

Point Break

Point Break; action, USA, 1991; D: Kathryn Bigelow, S: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty, John C. McGinley, James LeGros, John Philbin

Los Angeles. Four men, disguised in masks of ex-US Presidents, keep robbing banks, and then escaping in a car. FBI agent Johnny Utah is sent on the case, and his more experienced colleague Angelo Pappas has a theory that the four robbers might be surfers. Johnny thus decides to take on surfing lessons from Tyler, falls in love with her, and gets befriended with many surfers, including the unusual Bodhi. When it turns out Bodhi is indeed the boss of the gang, he kidnaps Tyler, and thus blackmails Johnny into robbing a bank with them — but without a mask. When the gang wants to break into the safe, a security guard and police officer shoot some of them. Bodhi escapes, Johnny follows him, they both enter a plane, but Bodhi escapes by jumping from the plane in a parachute. Years later, Johnny finds Bodhi somewhere along the Australian coast. Bodhi goes to surf on a wave during a huge storm, and disappears in the ocean.

"Point Break" is the darnedest thing: its aesthetics and style is a 10/10, but its story and characters are a 4/10. It is thus difficult to rate this film as a whole, since the viewers more inclined towards the former will like it more, while the viewers more inclined towards the latter will like it less. The most unusual ingredient in the rather standard action story is its villain, Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), who does not rob banks for selfishness—rather, the perplexing thing is that he robs to be able to live out his spiritual lifestyle, surfing, without having to be part of the capitalist lifestyle. This makes him different from other villains, but, alas, the movie really needed better character development and more philosophy. And some plot holes bother (for example, why does Bodhi take his mask off during the bank robbery at 93 minutes into the film? It makes no sense, since the cameras are recording the entire room). Nonetheless, the director Kathryn Bigelow and cinematographer Donald Peterman take a step towards advancing the new cinematic aesthetics established since the 80s, which have not been improved in the decades after "Point Break", meaning they have reached the optimum of cinematographic looks. Four moments are outstanding, two of which are "impossible" scenes, yet they filmed them anyway—these are the intense 5-minute long chase sequence across the streets, gardens and houses of Santa Monica, as Johnny is running after the robber wearing a mask of Ronald Reagan; and the scene where a character goes to surf into a giant wave during a storm. But the two "impossible" scenes are unforgettable: both involve the protagonists jumping from a plane, "gliding" during skydive, while the camera follows them and observes the coastline below. One of these "impossible" scenes is even more "impossible", as Johnny is left alone in the airplane after Bodhi escaped, but he still takes a gun and jumps out, without a parachute (!), falling until he reaches and grabs Bodhi skydiving, in a scene that is of such perfection, such passion and untrammeled imagination that it sends shivers down your spine, something modern Hollywood rarely reached, and thus this unbelievable highlight overshadows any flaws, sweeping all omissions away with its majestic momentum.

Grade:+++

Night Train

Pociąg; drama, Poland, 1959; D: Jerzy Kawalerowicz, S: Lucyna Winnicka, Leon Niemczyk, Zbigniew Cybulski, Teresa Szmigielówna, Roland Głowacki 

Numerous passengers board a train heading towards the north, the Hel peninsula on the Baltic Sea. Among the passengers are surgeon Jerzy, whose patient died during surgery and who forgot his ticket, and Marta, who bought a ticket from a stranger at the train station; they have to share the same compartment, even though it is reserved for men. They talk and exchange ideas, while Marta admits she is followed by her ex-boyfriend, the crazy Staszek. Other people include a lawyer and his wife, as well as a train conductor. The train stops unexpectedly and several police officers enter, arresting Jerzy under the suspicion of being an escaped murdered, because he is in the compartment that the suspect booked. However, Marta shows them the stranger who sold her the ticket, the real murderer, who runs through the train, presses the emergency breaks, and flees in the countryside. Dozens of passengers chase and capture the murderer, beating him up, after which the police takes him away. The train resumes its trip. The passengers exit at the last stop, including Marta who abandons Staszek.

Voted in a local poll as one of the 13 best films of the first hundred years of Polish cinema, Jerzy Kawalerowicz's "Night Train" is still a step below all this hype, a slightly overrated, but still good achievement. assembled in the form of a road movie set inside a train, where the passengers travel during the night, it is a cozy, competent, fluent film, but a one that is simply not that engaging nor interesting to the fullest. The main ingredient—the conversations between Jerzy and Marta, who have to share the compartment—is only sporadically inspired. One really good dialogue has Jerzy asking Marta, a meteorologist, what her job is, and she ironically replies with: "My job is predicting the future". The other is when Marta is looking in the camera in a close-up, pondering: "Nobody wants to love. Everybody wants to be loved". The drama segment is rather underwhelming (except for Zbigniew Cybulski playing the wild Staszek, Marta's ex lover), and thus the crime subplot revolving around a murderer hiding among the passengers, emerging in the last third of the film, is much more interesting, reminiscent of a variation of "Murder on the Orient Express", except without the detective part. The scene where the murderer pulls the emergency breaks, stops the train, runs into the meadow, while a dozen passengers run after him, one even throwing mud chunks at him, is the highlight of the film, entering a more intense, more focused territory. An assembly of several characters, "Night Train" attempts a kaleidoscope of Polish mentality, but its enjoyment value is today rather limited.

Grade:++

The Experiment

Das Experiment; psychological thriller-drama, Germany, 2001; D: Oliver Hirschbiegel, S: Moritz Bleibtreu, Justus von Dohnányi, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Andrea Sawatzki

Taxi driver Tarek applies for a strange add in which 20 people are supposed to play prisoners and guards in a fake prison for two weeks, for the sake of a social experiment led by University Professor Thon and his assistant Jutta. The reward is 4,000 DEM each. Tarek takes on glasses with a secret camera on them for a journalistic report. Once inside, the relaxed mood quickly disappears and is replaced with more and more tension from the people playing the guards, mostly by Berus and Eckert who resort to cruelty to impose their discipline. Tarek befriends fellow prisoner Steinhoff, an Air Force pilot who secretly monitors the experiment for the German military. Exploiting Thon's absence one night, Berus and Eckert order the guards to beat up an inmate, Schütte, who dies from bleeding; place Tarek in a solitary confinement, and kidnap and imprison Jutta. When Tarek and Steinhoff escape and release the prisoners, they end up in a bitter fight with Berus and Eckert, after which the latter dies. The experiment is aborted and the police arrest the guards.

"The Experiment" is a dark and bitter contemplation on how social laws prevent the worst aggressive impulses from emerging among even ordinary people—and how sometimes the border between playing a role and reality can disappear. It is inspired by the famous Stanford prison experiment led by Philip Zimbardo, but the movie unfortunately takes it very loosely—so loosely, in fact, that it seems more like a Hollywood action film exaggerating everything for pure sensationalism and unearned thrills than an intelligent European film. A little bit more of the latter would have been better. The first half is the best since it still has a sense for measure: the introduction of the characters is effective, and it is ironic watching how the guards of this fake prison are actually seemingly benign characters (Eckert is a professional Elvis impersonator; Berus works as an executive for an airline), but the role of guards gives them that illusion of power, authority and dominance over others, a sort of fake sense of significance. Soon they will start abusing the "volunteer prisoners", already revealing their dark side (an inmate says he cannot drink milk because he is lactose intolerant, but Eckert insists that all of them must eat their meal to the end, until their plates are empty, without exception, so Tarek defuses the situation by simply drinking the man's milk himself). The prison guards are not allowed to use violence, so Berus decides to spray them with a fire extinguisher, take the beds from their cells, strip them naked and leave them like that for the night, since, in his own words, "humiliation is control". There are some thought provoking issues touched upon here, such as situational context, the hidden urge for absolute power among some people (hinted at as an allegory of the Nazi dictatorship), empathy, and the limits of following orders even when it is not "worth it", but the second half becomes just a cheap action and fight collection, with highly unconvincing cliches (the Professor is at first absent, and then when the whole situation goes out of hand, he storms in alone, without any assistants to help him end this), which reduces the film's quality.  

Grade:++

Mob Psycho 100 (season 1)

Mob Psycho 100; animated fantasy action comedy series, Japan, 2016; D: Yuzuru Tachikawa, Takefumi Anzai, Katsuya Shigehara, Tomoaki Ota, S: Setsuo Ito, Takahiro Sakurai, Miyu Irino, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Akio Otsuka

Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is a secluded teenager with telekinetic powers, which can be upgraded to explosive levels if his anger levels reach 100% capacity. Mob works for Arataka Reigen, a swindler running a psychic agency which exorcises evil spirits from tunnels and schools. When one such evil spirit is defeated, Dimple, he assumes a form of a green ball and becomes Mob's sidekick. When Mob's brother Ritsu also obtains telekinetic powers, he is abducted by the evil Claw organization, which kidnaps people with special powers with a plan to use them to rule the world. Mob, Teruki (a bully he defeated) and Reigen infiltrate the Claw headquarters, destroy it, and release all the prisoners, including Ritsu. 

Warning: do not give up after watching only the first episode of this anime, because it improves later on. The character designs are too bland, but "Mob Psycho 100" excels in a wacky blend of humor, post-modern style, coming-of-age teenage story, discovering your potentials, and egalitarianism (in the finale of the first season, an evil organization wants to establish a world supremacy based on people with telekinetic powers, but the protagonist, himself having these special powers, rejects it and believes everyone should be treated equal). Several bits are simply creative and bursting with ingenuity. For example, in ep. 2, Reigen is arguing with a high school girl on the phone over whether Mob should join her club, and a stylized split screen shows the two of them shouting, with Reigen’s part of the screen moving towards the right side of the screen and taking more “space” when he is arguing more, and then retreating, whereas the girl’s screen is pushing to the left when she is more energetic in arguing. Ep. 3 has a hilarious plot of Mob being solicited by a random masked woman to join an underground sect led by a man called LOL, who can all make them laugh and thus happy. When Mob decides to leave because he is not interested, the cult leader warns him: “You are missing out on life!”, as Mob simply laconically turns his head and counters: “My dad said that people who’ve never smoked before are missing out on half of their lives. It made me realize that everyone has a different idea of “missing out”. 

The leader then challenges Mob to a bet that he should stay in the cult if one of the members make him laugh—specifically, Mob and a member are instructed to both take a full sip of milk, hold it in their mouths, and then try to tickle a chuckle out of each other: the one who laughs and spills milk from his mouth first, loses. This leads to some highly comical bits when one man makes grimaces by pulling his nose up, but then just instinctively laughs himself—and spits milk on Mob's face. After several such outcomes, Mob is tired of always "winning" and ending up with people spitting out milk on his face. Other ideas and sight gags are also amusing, such as when Mob takes a dumbbell with his telekinetic powers, but when he hands it to his own hand, he drops it to the ground since he is physically too weak of holding it; or when he cannot eat curry because spoons keep "bending" Uri Geller-style, while he holds them. The problem and a big flaw is when the story simply gives up on comedy and suddenly switches to an action and martial arts genre in episodes 7-10, as people with telekinetic powers are fighting, which undergoes a sort of undue "Dragonballization" of sorts, since these fights all start looking the same. Luckily, the final two episodes get the story back on the right track, resuming its comedy tone, mostly thanks to the return of Mob's boss Reigen, who is such a swindler that this leads to some unexpected big laughs. The way Reigen simply dismantles the narcissism of two out of three leaders of the Claw organization by demotivating them in episode 12, is deliciously refreshing; even the dialogue of the third leader with Reigen is a riot ("We are special! We are superior lifeforms to the rest of humanity!" - "I'm sure you have to believe that to even go on. But sadly, society has no interest in you"). "Mob Psycho 100" is an acquired taste—but once you get a hang of it, you get addicted, and wonder why that flavor is so rare to find.

Grade:+++

Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy; crime action, USA, 1990; D: Warren Beatty, S: Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Madonna, Charlie Korsmo, Glenne Headly, James Keane, Charles Durning, Dustin Hoffman, Michael J. Pollard, Seymour Cassel, William Forsythe, James Tolkan, Kathy Bates, Catherine O'Hara

A yellow trench coat is his trademark: police detective Dick Tracy works tirelessly to build a case and arrest "Big Boy" Caprice, the mob boss who united all other mob bosses under his rule to control the city and impose a racket on every business. Tracy adopts a little boy who witnessed the murder of gangsters by Caprice's gang, but his inclination towards Caprice's showgirl Breathless Mahoney costs Tracy his relationship with girlfriend Tess. An unknown masked man frames Tracy for murder, but the police still allow him to attack Caprice's headquarters. In the finale on gears, Caprice shoots the masked man, and in the ensuing fight, Tracy throws Caprice down a shaft to his death. The masked man turns out to be Mahoney. Tracy reunites with Tess.

Warren Beatty's 3rd feature length film as a director, "Dick Tracy" is an untypical choice for him, a comic-book adaptation with cult status that could go in a double bill with Burton's "Batman" released a year earlier: squeaky colors (especially yellow and green which are almost fluorescent), over-the-top set-designs, cartoonish villains with impossibly looking faces ("Little Face" has a face as wide as a pumpkin; "Pruneface" looks like The Thing from Fantastic Four) and exaggerated action all form elements of this peculiar achievement. It shows organized crime and mafia in a very specific, childlike way, whereas Beatty himself is pretty good as the title hero. However, after the viewers get used to this opulent world, the storyline becomes somewhat stale, routine and standard, without much inspiration or higher creative lift-offs, which is why the "wow" effect starts to melt away exponentially in the second half. For a homage to old crime and film noir films, "Dick Tracy" needed more snappy dialogue, such as the exchange between Tracy and Mahoney (Madonna): "Whose side are you on?" - "The side I'm always on. Mine." The best was achieved from the excellent Al Pacino as villain "Big Boy" Caprice, who "chews the scenery" and enjoys hamming it up big time, without ever losing the realistic, grounded touch. In one of the funniest scenes, where Caprice has rounded up all mob bosses and demands that he becomes their boss, "Pruneface" interrupts him to lament again: "I say we kill Tracy now!" - "I say you say nothing!" Dustin Hoffman, on the other hand, is wasted as bizarre caricature henchman "Mumbles", since you cannot make out what he is saying. "Dick Tracy" is an effective and attractive film, it is only that the people behind the set-designs showed more creativity than the authors behind the camera. 

Grade:++ 

Electric Sheep

Električne ovce; animated science-fiction short, Croatia, 2026, D: Gabriel Đorđević, S: Simon Radić, Ivona Komorčec

In the future, Bruno works for Atlas, a global AI company. He sits all day in his room and watches a chart on his computer screen, having to notify his superiors if it goes above a specific value. He plays video games online with his friend. In the evening, he feels depressed and activates Venus, an AI program that can assess his psychological status and help him, in this case in the form of an electronic woman that emerges from the screen.

"Electric Sheep" is a dark and bitter vision of the modern phenomenon where the more people have become connected to the Internet and AI, the more disconnected they have become from each other, which causes that feeling of existential dread of missing out on life. Produced by Kino Klub Zagreb, filmed entirely in rotoscopic animation which gives it a surreal touch, "Electric Sheep" is a 30-minute character study revolving around its protagonist, the chubby Bruno, who is the embodiment of such wider human isolation: he sits all day in his room and never leaves it during the day, whereas his job is obscure, since he is tasked to just watch some chart going up and down on his computer screen, so he spends more time simply watching YouTube videos in a sidebar. His father phones him and invites him for a visit, but Bruno declines. Bruno communicates with his friend only online, and plays video games with him remotely, again showing their disconnection. Even fake ads are added to ironically mock the viewers accustomed to endless spamming ads, and thus Bruno's spiritual emptiness becomes tangible, effective and relevant.

Not all bits and pieces work in the story. For instance, there is a strange opening act of two Chinese businessmen talking via phone, only two static photos of their faces visible on the left and right of the screen, the year "1 9 9 8" is seen, as the one on the right wakes up the other one at 4am because "Atlas will control the entire Chinese telecommunication and internet network", but the other is grumpy because he is sleepy: "I will rejoice tomorrow. Goodbye, Song!", and hangs up. This could have been cut. Likewise, the opening 24-minute segment revolving just around Bruno sitting in his apartment is too long, while the crucial final segment with the AI Venus is too short, starting only some 5 minutes before the end. This bit is the most fascinating, but too sparse. It consists out of Venus asking Bruno comical questions to assess his psychological status (for instance, what would he do if his friend showed him the photo of his new girlfriend, and it is the photo of Bruno's mother), and then the blond face of a woman emerges from the computer screen, heading towards Bruno on bed. This ends in an anticlimax, since it is followed only by bizarre phantasmagorical hallucinations, leaving everything deliberately vague and unsatisfying, to maybe connect it with the superficial nature of any attempt at finding happiness in a computer. The author Gabriel Dordevic still shows a quality made allegory on how people became victims of virtual living.

Grade:++

The Fountain

The Fountain; science-fiction drama / tragedy / art-film, USA, 2006; D: Darren Aronofsky, S: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis

Dr. Tom Creo is experimenting with a new potential cure for a tumor on a monkey in order to heal his terminally-ill wife Izzi. He transplants parts of an unknown tree from South America in the monkey's brain, and it regenerates the animal. However, it is too late and Izzi dies. Tom plants the seed of the mysterious tree near her grave. She gave him the manuscript of her novel and asks that he finishes the last chapter... In the novel, a 16th century Spanish grand Inquisitor is searching for Isabela, who sends Conquistador Tomas to South America to find a legendary tree of life so that she can prolong her life. Tomas loses his soldiers, but stumbles upon a Mayan pyramid where he is injured by a Mayan warrior. He reaches the tree of life and drinks its juice, but it just causes plants to grow from his body... In the far future, a bald Tom is traveling in a space sphere containing the tree of life, which prolonged his life as long as he eats bits of its crust, and Izzi's grave towards the Shibalba nebula, a legendary place that the Maya considered the source of life. The star explodes, engulfing Tom, the tree of life and the grave, uniting them. 

Darren Aronofsky's peculiar and nonlinear film "The Fountain" is a hermetic contemplation on death, transience, attempts at prolonging life, Buddhism, Taoism and acceptance, which is aggravated by the director's occasional autistic approach. It is unpleasant, but ambitious and worthy watch, facing the viewers with some existential thoughts they would rather usually avoid. The main story of a doctor (Hugh Jackman) searching for the cure to cancer for his terminally-ill wife (Rachel Weisz) is a banal soap opera, sometimes even a bit tedious, but the two side stories are at times fascinating. The dialogue is standard and routine, but Aronofsky's visual style is a standout, filled with several unusual camera pans, huge close ups, match cuts and scene transitions. The scenes in the far future, where Tom is traveling in a transparent sphere through space, containing the tree of life and the grave of his wife, are the most awe-inspiring. One phenomenal frame, some 8 minutes into the film, shows Tom's fingers coming close to the tree, causing its "hairs" to "turn" towards his touch, while the next frame has a camera panning up from the close up of Izza's hand, through her arm, to her head out of focus. He is also seen as a black silhouette practicing Tai Chi moves in the background of thousands of stars. And there is a wide shot of this unusual transparent sphere, seen only as a small dot, going from the lower to the upper frame of the universe. At around 32 minutes into the film, there is an exquisite frame of Tom, in the modern story, reading Izzi's manuscript, as the frame pans towards the right and shows huge close ups of letters: "Spain is on fire. The grand Inquisition...", as it slowly dissolves into this actual subplot of 16th century Spanish Inquisition, transitioning to another segment. Despite the ending contemplating the cycle of life, "The Fountain" is more stimulating in its visual style than in its spirituality and philosophy.

Grade:++

Remake

Remake; war drama, BiH / France / Turkey, 2003; D: Dino Mustafić, S: Ermin Bravo, Ermin Sijamija, Helena Minić, Aleksandar Seksan, Dejan Aćimović, Lucija Šerbedžija, Miralem Zupčević, Jasna Diklić, Emir Hadžihafizbegović

Paris. French film producers introduce Tarik, a Bosniak writer of their upcoming film, at a party. He remembers his life a year ago: Sarajevo, March 1 9 9 2. Tarik submits his film script to a French company. When the Bosnian War erupts, Tarik's girlfriend Alma is able to cross into Bosniak-controlled Sarajevo, while Tarik and his father Ahmed are evicted from their apartment in Grbavica by a Serb paramilitary. Tarik is assigned forced labor by digging trenches, but his old friend, Serb Miro, who was forcefully drafted, helps him escape. Tarik is again caught by Serb forces and verbally abused by commander Mišo, his former neighbor. The UN is able to release Tarik from captivity. In Paris, Tarik meets Mišo again and wants to shoot him, but eventually does not. Tarik returns to Bosnia as a soldier, throw a grenade in a Serb bunker and realizes he killed Miro inside. He is also killed in the explosion... 50 years ago, Tarik's father Ahmed is in a relationship with Eva. Appalled by the Nazi and Ustashe persecution of Jews and Serbs in World War II, Ahmed joins Communists and is sent to the Jasenovac concentration camp. He is released by Communist Marko, but Ahmed shoots him upon hearing he accidentally killed Eva when he wanted to assassinate her father. 

Based on writer Zlatko Topčić's allegedly real life events he experienced during the Siege of Sarajevo which he then connected in a parallel story of his father's experience in World War II, "Remake" is a bitter and effective war drama that sardonically contemplates how some historical patterns repeat themselves, and how each new war is basically a remake of a previous one. By showing these two parallel stories that rhyme, the director Dino Mustafic uses several scene transitions to flip-flop between one and the other. For example, in one scene Tarik and his friends observe hundreds of protestors walking on the street of modern Sarajevo, advocating for peace, holding slogans about "brotherhood and unity" and a photo of Tito, which then elegantly transitions to different protestors on the same street protesting against Fascism, in a time jump 50 years earlier. 

Tarik's captivity in a Serb concentration camp, where he is witness of abuse (some fifty prisoners are given only 16 seconds to eat mashed potatoes for lunch, with plates on the ground, and they are not allowed to use their hands, so they eat like dogs) is mirrored with his father Ahmed's captivity in the Ustashe-run Jasenovac concentration camp (with one particularly gruesome scene of dozens of men being lined up naked and ordered to walk outside under the excuse that they will take a bath, only for them to be lined up near a shore where they are killed by being hit with giant hammers from behind and their corpses being thrown into the Sava river), to bring the theme across: war only destroys people and their humanity, and never achieves any benefits to their lives. Circumstances might change, two groups that were allies in the past may become enemies in the future, but unless they disavow violence, this cursed cycle will never end. This is underlined in the subplot where Tarik recognizes his tormentor, ex-Serb commander Mišo (who was, ironically, his neighbor in Sarajevo before the war), in Paris, is tempted to shoot him—but then refuses, thereby outgrowing this fatalism. Some bits are a bit didactic, schematic or overstretched, since the theme threatens to "eat" the film's style and storyline, yet Mustafic is able to find a balance, whereas he has a sense for characters who feel alive (in one amusing scene, after an argument caused by Tarik belittling his girlfriend Alma for wrongly guessing a mime game, she just shows him her middle finger: "One word. And it's not the ring finger!"). 

Grade:+++ 

Journey of Hope

Reise der Hoffnung; drama / road movie, Switzerland / Turkey, 1990; D: Xavier Koller, S: Necmettin Cobanoglu, Nur Sürer, Emin Sivas, Yaman Okay, Mathias Gnädinger, Dietmar Schönherr

Eastern Turkey. Haydar and his wife Meryem have seven children, but feel there is no future for them in their village. After receiving a postcard from relative Celam who lives in Switzerland and praises said country, Haydar decides to sell his horse, cows and majority of land to get money to travel there. He at first plans to leave the children with grandparents, but Meryem persuades him to bring their oldest son Mehmet with them. They board a bus to a harbor in Aegean Sea and hide in a shipping container, because Haydar did not inform the agent to buy an extra ticket for the kid. They depart at Naples and take a truck drive to the Swiss border, but get rejected because their passports do not have a visa. In Milan, they contact people smugglers who agree to take them in exchange for Haydar giving them half of his future salary. While trying to cross a mountain, Mehmet dies from cold, whereas Haydar is arrested by the border patrol and sent to jail for investigation.

Roughly based on a real-life incident of a Turkish immigrant who tried to cross into Switzerland in '88, "Journey of Hope" is an interesting road movie depicting immigration to first world countries in a naturalistic manner, and from the perspective of these less fortunate outsiders living in poverty. The director and screenwriter Xavier Koller crafts the film in a raw, rough, astringent, minimalistic and objective way, refusing to slip into sentimentality, always keeping a distance, though he sympathizes with his three heroes and their long journey. At almost two hours, the movie is overlong, and needed more artistic inspiration or creativity to offer a richer viewing experience, since it is rather too simplistic in this edition. Koller builds the film on little gestures and quiet details: upon hearing that Haydar wants to emigrate from Turkey, his father laments: "Even grass comes out with all its roots. Once you've sold everything, you're worth less than this grass. You'll be without roots, a nothing." While stowaways in an Italian ship, Haydar, his wife Meryem and son Mehmet are given a small room to stay, yet since there is a poster of a topless woman on the wall, Haydar covers it discreetly by hanging a towel over it. The best frame is probably the one where, after trying to cross the cold mountain, three Turkish immigrants lean on to a glass window of a hotel, freezing in snow outside, while a man emerges from a swimming pool inside in swim briefs, telling them to go away because the "entrance is closed". Also, in the hotel, a border patrol officer is arguing with a doctor over how much more immigrants Switzerland can absorb: "We are up to our neck with this!" - "Then learn how to swim!" - "And you should learn Turkish!" Touching upon some timeless themes of immigration, xenophobia, prejudice, the search for a better life, tolerance and compassion, "Journey of Hope" is a quality film, but it could have been much better if it dared to be just half as courageous in crossing its cinematic boundaries as the protagonists were in crossing country boundaries.

Grade:++

Dragnet

Dragnet; crime comedy, USA, 1987; D: Tom Mankiewicz, S: Dan Aykroyd, Tom Hanks, Christopher Plummer, Alexandra Paul, Dabney Coleman, Jack O'Halloran, Harry Morgan

Los Angeles. The stiff, rigid Sergeant Joe Friday is assigned a new partner, the liberal, relaxed Pep Streebek, and their first assignment is to investigate mysterious crimes committed by an unknown cult called P.A.G.A.N. Following leads, Joe and Pep go to a secret gathering of the cult and save a virgin woman, Connie, from a ritual sacrifice to a snake in a well. She recognizes the cult leader behind a mask: Reverend Whirley. It turns out Whirley is trying to raise crime rates to topple the current Mayor and push Commissioner Jane Kirkpatrick in the upcoming election as the new Mayor, and conspires with erotic magazine publisher Jerry Caesar to finance this plan. When Whirley plans to kill Caesar in his mansion with poisonous gas, Joe and Pep stop and arrest him. Joe starts a relationship with Connie.

Tom Mankiewicz's feature length debut film, a humorous film adaptation of the popular eponymous TV crime series, and a rare movie where Tom Hanks has a 2nd billing to a comedian, "Dragnet" is a film that is under-hyped. It has flaws, some clumsy scenes (the chaotic ritual sacrifice attempt of the cult P.A.G.A.N.) and a few obvious cliches (random male fan service in the scene where a "Playboy"-style woman shows her chest to Joe and asks if these are "breasts of a 43-year old" or Pep bringing Joe for a coffee in a strip club), but its merits actually rise to the occasion in several moments, whereas Dan Aykroyd plays the stiff protagonist Joe Friday with gusto. The legendary "Dragnet" theme is also impressive. Several jokes are simply clever—for instance, the opening scenes show how a police officer arrives at a warehouse and asks brute Emil, disguised as a fireman: "Chief, where's the fire?", and then Emil lights a Molotov cocktail and throws it into the warehouse. While questioning the landlord about the suspicious Emil who lived at her apartment, she describes him as: "Useless scum-lapping shitbag", but Joe interrupts: "Just the facts, ma'am". During the interrogation room, Emil spits at Pep, who quickly dodges left—and thus the spit hits Joe in the face, who was standing behind Pep. Upon hearing Joe is missing since last night, Pep is worried: "No, Joe Friday has never stayed out all night, either. The day he was born, his mother had him home by 9:00".

It is wonderful to see Hanks simply "chewing the scenery" as a comedian, before his departure into more dramatic roles in the 90s. Aykroyd plays Joe as some sort of Sheldon Cooper, a too rigid robot-man who is a slave to rules and laws, and thus his teaming up with the relaxed, untrammeled Pep works because he gives him that passion, emotions and free spirit that makes him more human. The plot concept about manipulative toxic conservatism is remarkably subversive even today by showing that sometimes people who scream the loudest about morals are often the biggest criminals and hypocrites in private, embodied in the villain Reverend Whirley (very good Christopher Plummer), founder of M.A.M.A. (Moral Advance Movement of America), who is secretly the leader of the P.A.G.A.N. cult; wants to increase crime rates in L.A. to topple the current Mayor and install his own puppet; and cooperates with Jerry Caesar, an erotic magazine publisher, because, in his own words: "Without Jerry Caesars, there would be no moral outrage. And what's the good of moral outrage unless you have something tangible to direct it against? ... I'll control both sides of the equation". Whirley thus wants to support and nurture his own nemesis to have an excuse to gain more money and power from the people. The screenplay is not thought-out to the fullest, though—for instance, the plot hole here is that Whirley wants to assassinate Caesar. Why? It would eliminate his necessary rival. This is illogical, or, at the very least, "Dragnet" needed at least one more scene where Whirley is preparing to set up a new replacement for Caesar. As crazy as all of this is, "Dragnet" is a surprisingly well made crime comedy which shows that humor can even enhance the original serious source material.

Grade:++

Bean

Bean; comedy, UK / USA, 1997; D: Mel Smith, S: Rowan Atkinson, Peter MacNicol, Pamela Reed, Harris Yulin, Tricia Vessey, Andrew Lawrence, John Mills, Burt Reynolds

London. Since they cannot fire Mr. Bean, an obnoxiously incompetent security guard working at an art gallery, the board of directors decides to get rid of him by sending him to unveil the painting Whistler's Mother which is about to be shipped to a Los Angeles art gallery. Once in L.A., Bean settles at the home of gallery's curator David Langley, which in turn causes David's wife and two kids to leave him. Bean accidentally sneezes on the painting, thereby destroying its paint, but hides it inside the gallery's wall. To fix this, Bean secretly goes into the gallery at night and replaces the real painting with a poster. When General Newton arrives together with reporters to see the unveiling, they are fooled into believing it is the real one. Bean also wakes up David's teenage daughter Jennifer from a coma after a motorcycle crash, and thus the Langley family forgives him. Bean returns back to London.

6 years after the TV show "Mr. Bean" was released, the producers made this feature length film, which is of varying quality: some jokes work, some are contrived and inept. Two additional flaws are the tendencies of director Mel Smith to recycle jokes from the TV show (the rollercoaster and airplane scenes, for instance) and to indulge in the dumbest possible type of American 'lowbrow' humor for the broader masses, instead of staying true to its British humor (the failed gag of a motorcyclist giving Bean the middle finger, so Bean thinks it is a form of a friendly greeting in California and shows his middle finger to everyone during the ride in a car, was already bad when it was used the first time in the weak comedy "The Beverly Hillbillies"). However, Rowan Atkinson still has a sense for comic timing which helps tip the movie in the better direction, relying on physical comedy and slapstick reminiscent of comedians from the silent movie era, which used it as a form of universal appeal. Bean speaks very little, but is still able to transmit his personality through body language. Surprisingly, Peter MacNicol almost steals the show from Atkinson in dialogue moments, when his character David reacts to the idea that Jon Bon Jovi should unveil the painting Whistler's Mother: "I've nothing against Jon Bon Jovi. The man has had two great hairstyles in the last ten years, which is an achievement not to be sniffed at", but then adds he is still the wrong person for such a task. The finale in the hospital is forced, once again showing that the episodic set of sketches could have been aligned better for a feature film. "Bean" is a fun, silly, crazy, wacky light comedy, but the authors were more inspired in the better sequel "Mr. Bean's Holiday", which had a more harmonious set of jokes.

Grade:++

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood; animated fantasy adventure series, Japan, 2009, D: Yasuhiro Irie, S: Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya, Shinichiro Miki, Daisuke Namikawa, Kenta Miyake, Megumi Takamoto, Hidekatsu Shibata  

Brothers Edward and Al wanted to revive their deceased mother using alchemy, but the experiment goes wrong: Edward loses his leg and arm, and replaces it with metal limbs, while Al loses his entire body, and now exists as a giant empty knight’s armor. They embark on a journey to find the philosopher’s stone to get their bodies back and are enlisted by Roy Mustang as state alchemists. A serial killer, Scar, an ethnic Ishbal, kills every state alchemist because the country, Amestris, committed genocide against Ishbals who wanted independence from it. Edward and Al discover that a philosopher’s stone can only be created through sacrificing living humans, and that the state was doing that using convicts sentenced to death. The military also created homunculus, artificial humans. Ling, a prince from the East, is transformed into Greed. King Bradley turns out to be a homunculus himself, Wrath, after an experiment when he was a normal human. It turns out that a long time ago the King of Xerxes ordered an alchemist to make him immortal, and he used the blood of his slave von Hohenheim to create a homunculus, a black being in a glass, which sacrificed the lives of all people of Xerxes to give Hohenheim immortality and itself Hohenheim’s clone body, called “Father”. During the Sun eclipse, “Father” and Selim want to sacrifice five humans (Mustang, Edward, Al, Izumi, Hohenheim) in underground Central City, and use the souls of 50 million Amestrians to open a portal to the Eye of God, which he absorbs. But Hohenheim placed philosopher’s stones across the country which nullify the alchemy circle and return the souls to people. “Father” is returned to the netherworld, while Al retrieves his body back.   

6 years after the first anime adaptation of "Fullmetal Alchemist", new authors re-assembled a new version, "Brotherhood", which is more faithful to the manga source. As much as the 1st anime adaptation was very good, "Brotherhood" is simply better, even though it goes on for 64 episodes. However, its pacing is so furious and dynamic that it simply engages with ease, and its reputation is huge: at one point, it was even the highest rated anime series on IMDb. The first 2/3 of its storyline are outstanding, flip-flopping between action, adventure, fantasy, comedy and drama, all done to full satisfaction—but the finale loses that sense for fun and natural story flow, and undergoes a bit of a "Dragonball-ization" since it exhausts itself with too many excessive fights that start to look all the same, ending up a bit monotone. The opening episodes rise to the occasion since the characters are likeable, sympathetic, whereas the mystery involving the villain is set-up nicely—it is akin to a blend of Faust, Aztec human sacrifice, scientists willing to drop any ethics to find new discoveries, and Griffith from "Berserk". The humor in that segment is the most refreshing ingredient: for instance, in episode 3, priest Cornello says he is the “fist of god”, so Edward goes to a statue of god, and uses his alchemy powers to create a stone fist emerging from it, which stretches out from the statue and punches Cornello. In episode 6, Slicer belittles his rival Edward by describing him as a "little boy", so Edward replies: “Don’t take it too badly when you get beaten by a little boy!” In episode 25, upon hearing her mini panda might have been eaten by a dog, May cries so much her tears extinguish a fire for a pot. In episode 29, one official salutes: “Lieutenant Hawkeye, just returning from the restroom, sir!”

The best bits about battle and action scenes are always precisely those that have some inspiration, ingenuity or are just plain clever. For instance, in episode 5, Scar realizes Edward needs to clap his hands to use his powers, so he simply breaks off Edward's robotic arm. Scar is later surrounded by the police, but escapes by creating an explosion and going under the ground, through the sewer. In episode 19, Roy Mustang’s alchemy powers are controlling fire with gloves that have a circular alchemy symbol drawn on them. So Lust slices a water pipe above him to splash Mustang with water to nullify it, and takes his gloves. But a wounded Mustang simply later draws an alchemy symbol on his hand using his own blood, and ignites a fire with a lighter, anyway. In episode 38, two human soldiers transform into monsters (chimeras) to attack Scar, but then Edward and Al show up and beat up said chimeras, feigning they are monsters and don’t "recognize" them, to help Scar. In episode 40, Riza Hawkeye visits Mustang at military headquarters. In the kitchen she gives him a coded message by mentioning names, which Mustang writes down, and later simply takes the first letter from every name to decipher a message: “Selim Bradley is a homunculus”. One magical romantic moment: in episode 23, as Winry is leaving in a train, after Edward told her she will “cry tears of joy next time”, she leans forward, looks through the window and thinks of images of Edward, until she finally has a thought: “Now I understand. I fell in love with him”. However, it is a bit of a pity that that their relationship is rather neglected even after that. Flashback episode 40 is the highlight of this anime, an undisputable chef-d'œuvre, but it is mostly downhill after that. Episodes 24-27 and 46-48 drag and feel like “action fillers”, and the whole ending, although having a huge scale, feels somewhat calculated and unsatisfying. The action scenes take on the center stage in the finale, to such an extent that they start "eating up" the comedy, philosophy, and drama—it does not take a too big toll, but one feels the inspiration in the ending was not as genuine as it was in the beginning. The only moment of freshness is in episode 62, where Ling punches Father, who traps his arm and says he will suck the philosopher's stone from him. Ling seemingly howls in pain, but then stops, smiles, and says he is just joking, as the Father cannot take the stone without his shield down. "Brotherhood" is excellent, but why couldn't the whole finale have been as witty as this moment?

Grade:+++

The Odyssey

The Odyssey; fantasy adventure drama, USA / UK, 2026; D: Christopher Nolan, S: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway, John Leguizamo, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Samantha Morton, Elliot Page

Ancient Greek Era. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, enlists with his men into the military of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, to fight in the Trojan War in western Anatolia. They trick the Trojans by hiding themselves into a wooden horse, and once inside the city, Odysseus and his men open the city gates from inside, letting Agamemnon's army inside. However, Odysseus and his ship crew get lost on their way back and encounter a cyclops, man-eating giants Laestrygonians, singing sirens and sea monster Charybdis. During these 20 years, suitors eat at Odysseus' castle, wooing his wife Penelope who refuses them. Odysseus finally returns, teams up with his son Telemachus, and sets up a test: the suitor who can string his bow will marry Penelope. Odysseus is able to string it, takes arrows and shoots all the suitors. Penelope recognizes him again. 

Homer's 8th century BC epic "The Odyssey" endured literary interests throughout time, but one must simply admit that some of its parts aged better, while others aged worse. The dramatic, realistic parts still have that power and energy, but the mythological fantasy bits seem rather silly, forced and dated today, which is why numerous film adaptations mostly focus on the former. Director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan tackles both segments, but the movie would have been far better if the mythological parts were simply omitted and we just had the realistic segments, since the Trojan War episode and the finale are the best, brilliantly speaking both about the rarely talked about side effects of war (people wasting their entire lives on them, struggling to find back to their old life) and the hypocrisy of people (some of the suitors were old enough to enlist in the Trojan War, but avoided being drafted, only to now shamelessly exploit the hospitality and traditions of eating and feasting for free for a whole decade at Penelope's expense, attempting to marry her). The biggest surprise is Robert Pattinson who is excellent as the villain Antinous, the draft dodger, showing remarkable acting range. The locations are also fascinating, especially Dakhla and Aït Benhaddou. However, the mythological parts are without inspiration or awe, and are at times simply illogical. In the original, Odysseus subdues the cyclops by giving him wine and introducing himself as "Nobody", which is why the drunk cyclops falls asleep, let's his guard down, and Odysseus' men can then blind him to escape from his lair. In this edition, the cyclops simply falls asleep in front of the armed soldiers after it ate two of them, without any protection from them during the night, which is illogical and naive. The episode of Circe "rubbing" the faces of the eating soldiers to transform them into pigs also seems more bizarre than useful. The dialogue is conventional and standard, whereas the nonlinear 'out-of-order' narrative seems more like obfuscation than inspired storytelling. Despite virtues and aesthetics, Nolan should have invested more time into concise storyline and characters than just high-definition cinematography.

Grade:++

Tell No One

Ne le dis à personne; thriller, France, 2006; D: Guilaumme Canet, S: François Cluzet, André Dussollier, Kristin Scott Thomas, François Berléand, Marie-Josée Croze, Nathalie Baye, Jean Rochefort, Guillaume Canet

Alex and his wife Margot are swimming on a lake, she disappears on the other side, he goes to search for her, but is hit with a bat and falls unconscious. 8 years later, Margot has been declared dead and Alex tries to continue his life as a pediatrician. He receives an e-mail which shows a video of Margot still alive at a train station. The police shows up and informs him they found two male corpses at the lake with a bat that has traces of Alex's blood; and that they discovered a key among them with a compartment with photos of Margot in bruises 8 years ago. When Charlotte is murdered, and the police finds the murder gun at Alex's apartment, Alex is the suspect and he flees. He finds out that Margot shot Philippe, a pedophile, so Margot's dad Jacques, a retired police officer, hid his corpse. But Philippe's dad, the millionaire Neuville, ordered two thugs to kill Margot at the lake, so Jacques bribed one of them to kill the other one, and then killed the former, and feigned Margot's death so keep her safe from Neuville, who bribed and controlled half of police department. Neuville is arrested, while Jacques and Margot reunite.

Excellent crime thriller "Tell No One" is a typical Agatha Christie-style murder mystery done in a tour-de-force way, slowly switching gears from a steady to a furious peace, but all done in an intelligent manner thanks to a calm, restrained, but incredibly focused direction by Guilaumme Canet. A rare French film adaptation of an American novel, in this case the eponymous novel by Harlan Coben, "Tell No One" may be conventional, and it may be relaying too much on the final twist ending, but all the subplots leading to it manage to engage, and every little questionable detail plays a role later on—nothing is wasted, everything has its why and because when it connects in the end. For instance, a random small time gangster Bruno appears in the opening act, shouting in the hospital until the protagonist Alex (brilliant Francois Cluzet) takes his injured son for treatment. Later, when Alex is chased by the police, he finds refuge by Bruno and his friend in a ghetto: as soon as the police arrive there, the local migrant poor populace is agitated as it assumes the police is coming for them, so they throw a trash can at the police car, which totally disrupts their pursuit. The 5-minute chase sequence is outstanding, almost without any dialogue, with the highlight of Alex crossing a highway as a truck hits the breaks and several cars slam into it. All the actors are outstanding, but Nathalie Baye stands out even a bit more as Alex's lawyer Elisabeth, especially in the scene where she "grills" the District Attorney when she tells him she has a tight alibi for Alex during Charlotte's murder, so the DA goes: "There's just one catch. The murder weapon was found at his place." - "Trouble is, the tables have turned. That's now your problem! Tell the press your men planted evidence without your knowledge. At worst, you're a coward. At best, a DA without authority." The story tackles all the usual motives of crime genre: framing an innocent man as a cover-up to protect a criminal at the top; corruption; suppressed truth; uncovering of a polluted system; honesty vs. dishonesty. The twist ending must not be revealed, but it is insane, an incredible example of a genius pay-off that brings down the house, and even features a twist ending after the twist ending, a dizzying, unbelievable experience.

Grade:+++

The Whale

The Whale; drama, USA, 2022; D: Darren Aronofsky, S: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, Samantha Morton

Idaho. Charlie is an English literature teacher who teaches his students online, but never turns on his laptop camera. The reason is because Charlie is ashamed of his 600-pound body. Ever since his gay lover Alan committed suicide due to "religious guilt", Charlie has been living inside his apartment, binge eating. Alan's sister and nurse, Liz, occasionally drops by to take care of Charlie, urging him to go to the hospital because his blood pressure is 238, but he refuses due to medical expenses, saving all his money for his daughter Ellie (17), whom he abandoned when he divorced 8 years ago to be with Alan. Ellie is only there to ask Charlie to write an essay for her for homework. Thomas, a missionary for New Life Church, visits to try to convert Charlie. When Charlie is on the verge of a heart attack, he asks Ellie to read her essay about "Moby Dick" for him.

"The Whale" is a movie that is a tough, depressive, but also essential watch, symbolically speaking about how it feels like to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. This is the situation the main 600-pound protagonist Charlie finds himself in, since he made several bad choices in life which all come back to take a toll on him, even though he meant no harm. He is played excellently by Brendan Fraser, in a very unusual casting that pays off and shows his emotional side. There are moments that are gruesome (for instance, in one scene Charlie chokes while eating, and since Liz cannot do the Heimlich maneuver since he is sitting on the couch, she has to turn him sideways and kick his back), and the obesity subplot seems like an unnecessary gimmick at times, but after a while, the viewers forget about Charlie's weight, and only see the characters since their personalities are fascinating to watch. The whole film is only one sequence, playing out practically on only one location, Charlie's apartment (since it is based on the eponymous play by Samuel D. Hunter), featuring only five characters, but their interactions are mesmerizing. 

Besides Fraser, the other four actors are also excellent, especially Sadie Sink as Charlie's passive-aggressive teenage daughter Ellie, and Hong Chau as the caring nurse Liz. One of the sharpest dialogue comes when Ellie confronts missionary Thomas with her cynicism: "What I like about religion is that it assumes that everyone is an idiot and that we're all incapable of saving ourselves. I think they've got something right with that. What I don't like about religion is that when people accept Jesus or whatever, they suddenly think they're better than everyone else. By accepting the fact that they're stupid sinners, somehow they've become better and they turn into a***". The whole story is built on character interactions and emotions, the center being Charlie, who lost everything and has decided to practically commit suicide through binge-eating. But he is intelligent, caring and educated, and surprises several times. In one scene, he admits to Liz he feels sorry for Ellie, as he browses her social network profile and realizes she does not have that many friends. He even offers Ellie to write her essay for homework and pay her (!) just so that she can spend some time with him. She resents him for not being part of her life for 8 years, but he just tragically counters with: "Who would want me to be part of their life?" "The Whale" is an ode to outsiders living on the margins, who are neglected by the society because they are deemed "unattractive", but it shows that, if people just give them a chance, some of these outsiders are actually brilliant minds with a whole array of wisdom and feelings like everyone else—it is just that their minds are trapped in wrong physical circumstances. It may be a little strange to mention it, but "The Whale" has emotional weight that is even bigger than its protagonist. And one of Charlie's lines is unforgettable: "People are amazing".

Grade:+++