Ediebalboa

The Gray Man proves that Netflix can have all the money they want, but they won't get rid of the syndrome of cheap disposable entertainment. What on earth were those crazy drone flyovers? Couldn’t the Russos afford proper equipment? And proper special effects? With their messed-up Bourne, they prove that maybe there really was more to oversight under Marvel than we had been made to believe. All we got here is an unintended B-movie, a film that lacks identity, suspense and the hallmark of an event. And so little would have been enough in this summer season...

The Wire's spiritual successor tries its best to outline the complexity of Baltimore's current problems, but the path it chooses is a very circuitous one. It criticizes good cops, it criticizes bad cops, it criticizes councilmen, it pokes regular jabs at the Trump administration... All of this would be relatively fine if the series decided if it wanted to be a documentary or an actual crime drama. Personally, I lean towards the latter, because any "story" scene with the traditionally perfect Bernthal shows us that everything could have gone without a single stumble. Unfortunately, those passages are few and far between, and the filmmakers spend far more time on no-name investigators or flat characters like Wunmi Mosaku, whose only purpose is to have an astonished look on her face at all times .

Apart from the famous name of the tailor's shop, this episode has little in common with the previous ones. My understanding is that it was only the box office success of the previous two films that allowed Vaughn to tell his dream version, the only thing he had to come up with is how to sell it under the “Kingsman” brand. Overall, this prequel has a more serious tone, and the humour comes more from playing with history than from the assorted shenanigans The Golden Circle was riddled with, and Ralph Fiennes fits perfectly into this more serious take, he's the one who primarily pulls the film along, even where the script starts to fray. The King's Man is by no means flawless, but it can surprise at the right moment with its plot, thrill with its action, dazzle with its visuals, and you can see that everyone involved, from the weapons designers to the famous faces in the cameos, had a blast making it.

A patriach of cinema, Me Too and the Middle Ages. On paper, The Last Duel might have appeared to be an intimate drama with a nod to the present day, but that would have been without Ridley Scott sitting in the director’s chair. Over 2 hours of conversations pass like water thanks to the storytelling skills of the duo Ben and Matt, no doubt, but when the swords come into play, they do so with such aplomb that you feel you're back on the set of the Kingdom of Heaven rather than at a fight between two disgraced men over a woman. Scott's script and visuals came together again after years.

A return to the Soprano family, which unfortunately fizzles out very quickly; deservedly so. For those unfamiliar with the acclaimed series, HBO only offers themes already seen several times in other gangster films, and the fan service is also unimpressive. While many familiar faces appear, their characters come and go as they please (even during a gunfight), and it’s hard to find a strong scene. With this lacklustre prequel, Alan Taylor confirms that if he’s no longer able to score even on the "home turf" that kick-started his career 20 years ago, it's high time he abandoned movies for good.

A straightforward medieval ride where, contrary to current trends, there is no room for any filler with mythology, shallow stories of side characters from the tavern or dragons, undead and other monsters. Amen for that. The Last Kingdom sticks firmly to its protagonist Uhtred, leaving space for others only when their fates move the central plot, or even the whole story. A trivial strategy for today's filmmaking, perhaps, but one that is appropriate as the series progresses, avoiding blind or unfinished storylines, which actually would have been hard, given the excellent source material. The British creators pick the best from all the books and, apart from a rather cheesy introduction, they create their story in Hungarian studios flawlessly. Not so for Series 5, which takes only the bare minimum from the books and history, and its plot veers off in all sorts of directions. Still, this last phase of Uhtred manages to bring the series to a close with many times more grace than the geniuses Benioff & Weiss managed in their time with the messy ending of Game of Thrones.

Disney swallowed 20th Century Fox back in the spring, but the symbolic end of the studio producing expensive movies with flair has only just arrived. And that ending is truly iconic. Le Mans ‘66 is an example of proper Hollywood, where everything works as it should, with the bad guys wearing neat ties and the good guys sporting greasy cowboy hats. It's that simple and that's all the story needs. And what is the only major difference with Rush? That with Hunt and Lauda, they knew it had to end with the best.

A peasant road-movie, Roma, Volyň, a twisted The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared or Forrest Gump? The Painted Bird has a little of each, but what it certainly isn't is a historical account, let alone a drama. It’s rather a collection of realistically possible events that are unrealistically glued into one story. It wouldn't be a problem if the situations Jožek gets into were varied and each of them would develop his character differently and move the plot somewhere. But, after a successful introduction, we are left with a repetitive parade of unfortunate episodes with elusive creatures, where the variations, as well as the emotions, are few, because with each subsequent cruel episode you paradoxically worry less about the hero. Kosinski's work is simply unrewarding to film, only a genius with a clear vision could squeeze something more coherent out of it. Marhoul merely retells it and the only genius on the set remains Smutný with his camera.

Screenwriting dithering of the worst calibre. The internet has already taken care of most of the more constructive criticism for me, and is now grilling the showrunners mercilessly, and rightly so. Season 7 may not have made much sense, but it was still at least a ride that was cool enough to forgive its numerous holes in logic. But Season 8, no. After 8 years, the drop in quality is as if instead of The Return of the King, The Two Towers had been followed by Owen’s King Arthur. But what's far worse in Westeros than at head of the Round Table and his buddies is the fact that characters you've really cared about for years are drowning in the same mud.

Book/movie, I can confirm today, it doesn't matter. The story of The Green Mile belongs on the pedestal of the best ever written. What adds up to an extra marathon of over 3 hours is an immensely strong line-up of great supporting characters, among whom even star power Tom Hanks remains slightly overshadowed. Another bonus is the brilliant musical score by Thomas Newman and the slightly altered tone compared to King’s novel, which pushes the envelope a bit more in some moments and turns it almost into a fairytale as a result. Very dark and adult, but still universal enough to be fully experienced by a nine-year-old boy whose parents let him watch it past midnight for the first time in his life.