Goldbeater

A Canadian slasher flick about teenagers who decide to spend the night in a mall after closing time, only to be chased by dysfunctional night watchmen. Thematically, it's nothing new under the sun, giving a nod to classics from the 1980s like Chopping Mall, but Wake Up is very dynamically shot, and the RKSS creative collective behind retro throw-back flicks like Turbo Kid and Summer of '84 are able to stylize the action in neon colours and ride the wave of genre clichés without being annoying. It's simple and not revelatory by any means, but importantly, it's also entertaining and quite brutal.

It's not my cup of tea. I can appreciate the truly admirable animation and imaginative world-building, but I'd be lying if I said it satisfied me as a viewer. The one-dimensional, soft-spoken protagonist is a dull and uninteresting link between Hayao Miyazaki's many fantastic dream sequences. Emotionally, it completely passed me by and, especially in the last third, I found it quite annoying. Not a fan, sorry.

Joe Lynch adapts H.P. Lovecraft's short story “The Thing on the Doorstep” very loosely, paying homage to the work of Stuart Gordon, whose film adaptations of the Providence stories made that weirdo famous. You can expect a classic retrospective narrative of the protagonist locked up in a mental institution, a bit of eroticism, a few spontaneous outbursts of violence and a good dose of cute overacting and black humour. However, you won’t see the kind of striking special effects we would expect from a Lovecraft adaptation. Here, they try to make up for the visual niceties by playing with the camera and the editing, but it don't look very impressive in that low-budget guise. In its low-budget conception and visuals, it almost evokes direct-to-video films of the 90s, so if I were to compare Suitable Flesh specifically to Stuart Gordon's work, it would belong more to the Castle Freak era than Re-Animator or From Beyond, which is not necessarily a criticism, more of a clarification. For fans of the genre, it might be an interesting throw-back, but for anyone else I'd probably be reluctant to recommend it because of the specificity of the concept. In any case, Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton are a very dynamic duo here, and they don't even share that much screen time together.

An indie horror film about a werewolf who decides to relieve the world of his existence, but before doing so, he plans to settle scores with a few of his neighbors in a New York neighborhood and confront a local real estate mogul using unfair practices. It's actually a pretty sweet and naive indie drama that hides its very low budget as much as it can, but the cheapness comes through a lot. Which, especially in the last third, makes for some (probably unintentionally) funny scenes.

Great technical level. The choice of time and setting and the associated production design, the use of miniature buildings and the effects that embed live characters in them is great. Even the prosthetic make-up on Ladislav Hampl's face looks pretty solid. But the story, its associated themes and characters work less well and at times seem as heavy-handed as the dumb English title We Have Never Been Modern. I have a problem with several of the moral aspects of the film, which are either presented as entirely unproblematic or, for good measure, not mentioned at all. Overall, however, this is still one of the more thematically interesting works of Czech cinema this year, though in my opinion somewhat along the lines of the saying “in the land of the the blind, the one-eyed is king”. [KVIFF 2022]

Even though intimate stories about the reconnection between an estranged parent and offspring are a feature in practically every edition of the festival, one I sometimes tire of with its thematic weariness, Second Chance successfully managed to break out of this lethargy and totally suited me. It almost teeters on the edge of melodrama, almost. But it never falls over that edge. The chemistry of characters of the father and daughter played by a real-life father-daughter duo works very well. There's nothing much to fault about it. A nice little film. [KVIFF 2023]

From the outside, The Taste of Things is practically the pinnacle of a genre that could be called simply “gastro-porn”. At its core, however, it is also a film that touches on so many interesting and thoughtful themes that all the flavours it evokes during the screening will stay with you for some time to come. A sensitively made drama with masterful performances and I wouldn't be surprised if Benoît Magimel wins the César for the third year in a row. [KVIFF 2023]

Blaga's Lessons confirms that Stephan Komandarev is a master at the portraying social conditions in Bulgaria. His films are not only eloquent and thoughtful, but also entertaining, which is not always easy to balance. For the first time in a long time, I can understand the award for the winning film of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. [KVIFF 2023]

Embora as primeiras resenhas do festival tenham elogiado demais Vidas Passadas, o filme possui algumas falhas. No entanto, trata-se de um drama de relacionamento muito bem escrito, que é refrescante e autêntico. Isso também se deve ao uso de locações externas - já faz um tempo desde que tivemos um filme que utilizasse tão bem os cenários e pontos turísticos de Nova York em aspectos civis e românticos. Isso é tão difícil assim? [KVIFF 2023]

During the film, one of the actors says something to the effect that he feels like he's in a Lost in La Mancha kind of documentary, which is quite interesting, because while this film would like to approach the depth of the desolation and destruction of filmmaking that was described in Lost in La Mancha, we don't quite feel that depth here, despite some very similar thematic aspects, and the circumstances of the problematic making of Costa Brava, Lebanon are far more tragic and embedded in modern history. Nevertheless, Dancing on the Edge of the Volcano is still a very impressive documentary with a plot that practically has a complete dramatic structure, so it could easily pass for a very compelling drama. [KVIFF 2023]