Goldbeater

This is a political satire produced by Barry Levinson that is as relevant today as it was twenty years ago. I also think it could be more and more relevant in the future. It does not have an entirely cohesive style from start to finish - it turns from a tame comedy into a relatively powerful cautionary drama, but it still appeals to audiences mainly thanks to the great cast (I do not want to single out any of the actors in particular, the whole ensemble is simply great). Director Joe Dante reportedly said that he considered this television movie to be his greatest directorial achievement, and the cast here was the best he had ever worked with.

This is a visually attractive melodrama about two people fated to love each other, set during the times of Stalinism in Poland. It is beautifully shot, but the screenplay does not shed enough light on the motivations of the two main characters - especially why they both keep saying how much they love each other, and yet every time they briefly live together they can hardly stand each other, constantly on and off, which means they, therefore, can not stay together. The "adversity of fate" seems like quite a convenient excuse there. It reminded me of the old Finnish drama Something in People, where there is a peculiar romance going on over a period of several years between the two main protagonists, who were also attracted to each other in a tragic way.

Fish simply have us, the humans, figured out. Denis Villeneuve made a chilling existentialist drama with a romantic storyline and slightly reflects Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where a group of fish also philosophized over the question of human existence. This is an interestingly structured story with a pinch of black humor, and is a movie that will definitely not be to everyone’s taste.

The idea of a power outage in the setting of a lunatic asylum is a solid foundation for a horror thriller, especially when the accomplished screenwriter S. Craig Zahler is involved in it. Unfortunately, he probably did not have the last word on the screenplay, or he was just using this movie as an exercise for his movie making style, because it is quite half-baked and the end of the movie is quite chaotic, lacking interesting characters and dialogues, which is normally Zahler's strength. It could have turned out much better.

People can enjoy an incredible journey through this gory Ozploitation. Of all the movies about "hunting people down" this is definitely an honorable and imaginative representation, which must please fans of Australian B-movies. Brian Trenchard-Smith got off the rails here. Steve Railsback, who has the look of a psychopathic junkie, and the silly goose Olivia Hussey, as the two main protagonists, do not really carry this movie as the real acting is done by the villains in supporting roles, who obviously had a whale of a time - Roger Ward especially is quite believable as the sadistic warden. This is a great trashy action movie.

This is an average example from the period of the Italian cannibal horror B-movie boom, which has everything that characterizes this blasted sub-genre - from the plausible gore, through the numerous naked bodies and indigenous rituals, to inexcusable violence against animals. The acting performances go from respectable (Stacy Keach) to quite appalling - Ursula Andress is quite unbearable for a large part of the movie, until to the moment when, in a torn dress, she starts running away from the cannibals. If you are wondering if this picture deserves to have such a low rating - in my opinion it does not. It is just a completely ordinary piece of Italian trash with a shaky plot and a decadent finale when most audiences probably expected some sort of horror masterpiece from Sergio Martino.

Brian Trenchard-Smith boarded a James Bond/Bruce Lee movies train to create an adventurous kung fu Ozploitation B-movie using Australia's most famous landmarks (from a fistfight at Ayers Rock, to hang-gliding over the Sydney Opera House). Although Jimmy Wang Yu is a terrible (non)actor unable to convey emotions and the plot of The Man from Hong Kong is quite unsophisticated, the constant action and especially deranged stunts are quite enjoyable. During the making of the movie, health and safety at work were allegedly completely ignored, which resulted in more than one accident. For example, when George Lazenby was to be set on fire for one scene, he absolutely refused to do the stunt. He let himself be coaxed into doing it only after the director Trenchard-Smith himself set fire to himself, but when at the fateful moment, Lazenby's burning jacket could not be removed, (which is clearly visible at the end of the movie), the burning fuel began to stream onto his hands, he had to be extinguished by a blanket. Then, in a fit of rage, he punched the director Trenchard-Smith. The director was involved in a dispute with the main protagonist of the movie, (and he was not alone, Jimmy Wang Yu was allegedly a terribly arrogant man who was disliked by all the crew,) so in the collective fight scene, where the physically fit director himself plays one of the killers, the fighting was real. That is how it went down in Australia.

While half of the world today enjoyed excessively politically correct Oscars, the whole of Czechia enjoyed the last episode of politically incorrect MOST! This is a refreshing series that humorously and flawlessly reflects the Czech temperament, which is milked until the very last drop. These top-quality bold jokes are necessary for these times. It is not anything groundbreaking, however, I am happy about the high viewing figures and it is nice to see a production once in a while that, thanks to its strong creative leadership, simply hits the spot.

This is quite a terrible hodgepodge in which the influence of the Gothic horrors of the British Hammer Films is combined with a wannabe rock opera. Harry Nilsson is clearly a non-actor, and the movie certainly fails because of him in the lead role, even when he sings the notorious baby-maker "Without You". Otherwise, all you have to do is see Ringo Starr in the supporting role of the wizard Merlin with a long white beard, and you have seen the most interesting thing in the whole movie. Starr even allegedly said that he thought the movie was so awful that he would definitely not allow to release it in any home media, and so, it has not been released (officially) on VHS or DVD to this day.

You should not expect too much horror here. The movie is dominated by the scenes with hallucinations in the middle of the movie, when a decent atmospheric horror sequence appears, but otherwise, it is more of a modern vampire drama on the subject of what it would look like if vampires lived among us as an organization exploiting humans. It is a pity that the sinister Henry Silva was not given a larger role in the movie when he had already been dragged all the way from the United States to Australia. With his demonic appearance, he could have aimed for the part of an archvillain, while he ended up with a more or less superfluous supporting role.