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Kursadzije (2006)
Balkan TV show that sets the bar too high to reach
The humor is filled with regionally flavored inner Balkan jokes and brilliant puns that unfortunately may be next to impossible to translate, but for me what Cheers, M*A*S*H and The Office (US) are in the Anglosphere of television, Kursadzije is for the Balkans and south-eastern Europe. Set in the post-war era that tore Yugoslavia apart, Kursadzije (The Course Attendees) have a representative from the each Yu-nation, even from the Roma people, and while the shows often tackles the stereotypical features of each, its main narrative is a strong anti-war message to future generations that all conflicts should and can be solved in a peaceful and humorous manner. What Avatar TLA meant to teenage generations, Kursadzije is for young adults. Note that with this beautifully scripted and brilliantly acted show, all the creators and actors are from the Academia, which makes it even more impressive.
Rick and Morty: Rickdependence Spray (2021)
Quitting the Show
This one has pushed it so far. Every season had its weak episodes based on pure randomness, but to go through an entire season without a single decent episode, this is a signal to stop. In the previous episode, I wrote a review stating that the show got Simpson'd, but it's far worse. What puzzles me is that there are no tons of reviews giving this excrement of an episode 9/10 or 10/10 with "best episode so far" and "my personal favorite" nonsense.
El hoyo (2019)
Totally misunderstood by Internet community (or am I blind?) *SPOILERS*
This film is NOT a "metaphor of capitalism", "critics of capitalism" etc. Why is this opinion so predominant on the Internet and among the critics, when it totally lacks any significant similarity with capitalism, and has more with socialism, and ghettos, gulags, and Nazi concentration camps, if we're to perceive it as a "metaphor" of any social system at all?
The essence of injustice in capitalism is the supposed abundance of supplies and unequal distribution in the sense that those on the top have multiple times than they need. Another characteristic is the more-less stability of the classes - you very rarely move more than a few steps up or down the ladder during your lifetime from the position you had been born into. Whereas it is the socialist regimes where, depending on the whim of the dictator, secret police, or some invisible power, you may find yourself on the good floor, and in the other wake up in prison, gulag, or concentration camp.
Also, we here don't see any abundance on the top floors! For Christ's sake, those on the top floors are just starved men being given TWO MINUTES A DAY to eat! For thirty days, not knowing where they'll wake up next! The food on the platform is not enough for the first 100 floors, let alone 333! How can a "metaphor of capitalism" be the system in which you are given a choice of whether to starve yourself so that other won't starve, or survive on the verge of starvation, while others die of it.
The film inspires thought. It has a clumsy and hasty resolution, but I can forgive that. One of those film that makes you ponder into human behavior and how we behave under extreme and sadistic circumstances, and would rather leave it to that, and not give it a context of social systems' criticism, which it is not.
Rick and Morty: Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty (2019)
Worst so far
Being a fan of Rick and Morty, I am not a fan of random improvisational humor, as in those inter-dimensional cable TV episodes. This episode had a similar vibe. Makes an excellent company to "Vindicators", the "Obama episode" and other I-wish-I-could-unwatch ones. Even more, it struck me as something of the worst of TV in the past few years in general.
Game of Thrones: The Long Night (2019)
Unless you are intellectually challenged, this one will insult your intelligence on so many levels
One hour and twenty two minutes of completely wasted time.
The series is dead. It even turned the previous episodes into crap because they lead to this.
Super (2010)
Brilliant
It is hard to rate independent/alternative films, because although I'd give this one a 10/10, it would seem unfair to put it beside movie classics. On the other hand, I totally enjoyed every second of it. The story is both bizarre and great, Rainn Wilson delivers a strangely adorable performance, and the film as a whole is original and brilliant. A cult film and definitely one of my all time favorites.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Despite the hate, the spirit of the Original Trilogy shines more brightly than ever
I must admit that after this year's disappointing sequels (Blade Runner 2049) and utterly bad ones (War for the Planet of the Apes), I was dismayed by the amount of hate that followed the release of this film. Especially having in mind Lucas' "prequels" and "edits" in the 2000's.
Fortunately, for no reason at all. The film is excellent. But, there's always a "but": if you're a fan of the OT, you need to watch it through the eyes of your young self, back when you first saw 'Empire'.
It seems that all the hate comes from fans who first saw OT as teenagers, and have grown meanwhile, having watched hundreds of films in the process, and now somehow expect a Star Wars film to mature with the same pace. Frankly, they remind me of my, then 35+ parents, who always found the OT irritatingly silly to the level of being unwatchable.
Looking at the faces of teenage SW lovers in awe during the projection, made me imagine how would I like the film if I first saw it the same time when I first saw the OT. Without exaggeration, it seems even better.
From the point of view of a seasoned SW fan, I found the film entertaining, interesting, entirely non-ridiculous and non-predictive. I am proud that, after those pitiful "prequels", the next generations will have their SW films. Disney didn't ruin the saga, it made it rise as a phoenix. But please have in mind that SW were a children's Sci Fi fairy tale to begin with.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Coming from a Fan: Total Disappointment
To me, the banality of the film is insulting. I don't know with which sequel to compare it first, with Highlander II or The Matrix Revolutions.
Although both Rise and Dawn had their flaws, I wasn't going to nitpick because I loved the films so much that I kept turning on the suspension of disbelief whenever necessary. So I really didn't expect that War could in any way disappoint me if they only kept the pace. But I was wrong. The story was poor, plot unconvincing, characters not developed enough and with idiotic motives and behavior, "dramatic" scenes lacking any maturity whatsoever.
Despite the fact that the film is not about any kind of war, and that the trailer is misleading and a total lie. Yes, there is no war in the film, and especially no war between apes and humans - the only thing that resembled war had already happened in the Dawn. The film is a mixture of Schindler's List and Prison Break, while failing both. So, expect Scofield brothers with a Jar Jar Binks alike side-kick, trying to escape a Nazi death camp, and you'll get the picture. Pure luck is the main factor of literally everything significantly important happening. All characters, including Caesar, are reduced to total idiots surfing on the waves of ludicrous decisions followed by lucky circumstances.
It's a shame to rate a film with such magnificent score, scenery, shots, and CGI with a 3/10, but it is just beyond my comprehension that they couldn't employ a decent writer. Those were the shallowest 2 hours I spent in the cinema lately, and I especially feel cheated on because, to me, they ruined something that could have been a great Sci-Fi trilogy of the 2010's.
I will not go on about the nods to 1968 original, nor the forcibly put sub-plots to explain how some events in the original film were possible (a virus that causes loss of speech in one day, I mean, come on!) Or Koba's followers who are now willing to become humiliated human slaves and ape-killers, because oh they hate Caesar so much. Come on, the point of joining Koba in the first place was irrational and uncompromising hatred towards humans! I could go on, almost every single motive for doing anything in the film is ridiculous.
Perhaps I am being biased, I admit I am watching in disbelief all these enthusiastic and positive reviews. But I cannot find a single positive thing about the film. To me, it defiled the trilogy and made me sorry for seeing Rise back in 2011 to begin with, and getting hooked up to the story.
And perhaps it is not that awful in the end, but missing the opportunity to finish a great piece of work with a decent final touch is worse than making a poor one from the start.
Krugovi (2013)
"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
In a war-infested country, behind the lines, a soldier on leave interferes to save the life of an innocent man from another ethnic group, being beaten by his fellow soldiers. He ends up being beaten to death instead.
20 years after the war, one finds himself thinking about who were the true war heroes. An utterly pointless act, to risk your own life in a havoc in which a human life is wasted in the blink of an eye, for someone you barely know, is something one can see only on screen. In reality, most of us are those who watch, who witness, but dare not interfere.
One man did interfere, and lost his life, seemingly pointlessly. The only child of a widowed father, with a fiancée whose life would become a sad and tragic story of a drifter afterwards, and the gang of murderers sentenced to ridiculously short sentences. Was it worth it, are good deeds worth it in general? There's an ironic English proverb saying that no good deed goes unpunished. But the story tells that even a rock thrown in water makes circles that grow and spread. In this case, circles of compassion that go through space and time and inspire many. Circles that help us find inner courage to stand up to injustice, that help us find the compassion to restrain us in revenge upon the innocent.
This film was inspired by a true story. The story of Srđan Aleksić, a Serbian soldier on leave who was beaten to death in 1993 by his fellow men, while trying to save Alen Glavović, an innocent Muslim civilian, who was being beaten before him. Out of the four rascals, only one expressed regret in the court. Ironically, he was the only one to meet death shortly, within a couple of months, shot on the front line, where all four were sentenced to. Srđan's father wrote in his son's obituary "He died fulfilling his human duty".
The circles that the rock of Srđan's deed made are those which eventually made him the only war-hero respected and cared for on all the opposed sides. What strikes me most were Christ's words that "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." Those circles keep showing us that such deeds of the greatest love are possible and were made by a man who had lived among us, and who never lived to see his family growing and his children being born, unlike us, the silent witnesses, who take so much pride in love we feel and share.
The names are altered and the rest of the story is entirely fictional. Being a person from the region, there was little in the film for me not to be fully understood and grasped. Therefore, I am somewhat reluctant to recommend it to worldwide audience, fearing if its universal message would break through the local context it took place in. But I do. Here is an excellent, slow and heavy Serbian drama with little action, much dialogue and fine acting, telling us the aftermath of a well known story, and circles of compassion, forgiveness, courage and inner purification.
R.I.P. Srđan Aleksić 1966 — 1993
The Jacket (2005)
A film definitely worth watching
A good and touchy drama about human lives with a mystery/thriller aspect involving (possible) time-travel, without turning it into either a science-fiction film, or an action one.
The film starts with Jack, whom we see as a good and a kind man, a Gulf War veteran with severe consequences regarding his wartime head-wound. Dealing with his amnesia attacks, he is involved in a serious crime he has no memory of. During the course of the film, he possesses the opportunity to learn to know better both himself and people around him, urging him to try to make wrong things right.
A warm recommendation to dedicate one evening, or weekend afternoon, to this film.