Reviews

Since this is a Serbian movie (and I don't know if there's a subtitled edition out there), I'm not sure if this review is going to be useful to anyone other then Serbian audience but let's put it here, someone might find it useful. The story has a potential but at times it goes to much into a cliché and it seems more or less predictable. Since this is a Serbian movie, and we prefer the dark tones in our cinematography, this might look like a "serious" movie to a typical western consumer accustomed to "rom-com's" but the quality of acting is not much above that level. The production values are relatively low and the whole movie feels more like a theater play than anything else, but it has it's shining moments. All in all, it's not something that will take your breath away, but it's not that boring as well. A decent movie, but if you skip it you won't miss too much.

If this movie was a person I would feel sad for him/her. But not the type of sadness that you feel for a person that had lost the genetic lottery or had a run of bad luck, but the uplifting kind of sadness that translates as "Thank you God/Mother Nature/Flying Spaghetti Monster for not turning me into something like this." It is stupid, it is ignorant, it is condescending, it is boring, it is a kind of movie that gives you a special appreciation for those trashy flicks that they make with one camera and a 1000$ budget. I can go all day long about how bad this movie is but I'll just skip to the conclusion - If you don't want to ruin your day, stay away from this one, as far as you can.

Even though British cinematography is closer to Hollywood than any other (European) one, here's a fine example how a clever narration and fantastic cinematography can make all the difference (between this movie and some average rom-com - "Down to You" and "She's All That" first come to mind). Since "Playing by Heart" thought us that "Talking about love is like dancing about architecture." this movie tries to add an extensive visual layer to the story and it does it rather successfully. Some might find this movie to be pretentious and full of "shallow philosophizing" and "excessive nudity", but these are absurd statements. The thing that comes across is that this movie never takes itself too seriously and this is it's strong point. You are there to watch and enjoy and if you pick up something "meaningful" out of the entire babbling of the main character, good for you. If not, you'll still be happy just for all the eye candy presented to you. A win-win. And that's always good in my book.

War is a nasty, nasty thing. The only people who can support war are those who never felt it on their own skin and psychopaths. If you have, even in traces, enough empathy to feel the pain of a fellow human, you will be a firm pacifist your entire life. And this movie serves as a great reminder of that. We live in the times when fear is all around us. You turn on the TV or you go online and there's a terrorist attack or a massive shooting going on. And you are forced to make a choice - you are either with us or you're one of them. The world is separated into good guys and bad guys and everything is perfectly black and white. But life is never so simple. I highly encourage you to watch this movie. You will be enlightened, even if just for a bit. I promise you that.

Right at the beginning - is this a good show? Yes. Is this the best thing since sliced bread? No. I don't think that the show deserves so much praise as it gets. There's almost a pathological sense of nostalgia nowadays and I would ascribe a lot of the series success to it's setting in the 80's. The feeling of the "good old days" is so abundant in the audience that they'll swallow pretty much anything with the retro vibe and continue to ask for more. So, let's put off those nostalgia glasses and be realistic. The series deserves praise for the execution since it's good enough to keep you engaged and make you binge watch the whole season. On the other hand, so many things have already been seen in other movies/series that there's no sense of originality (at least for me). If you are a long term fan of the genre, there's almost nothing new to see here. But if you're a newcomer, this will be a nice initiation into this type of movies/series and hopefully it will encourage you to dig deeper and find all the other works that inspired this one. For the beginning start with the one I've put in the tittle. Happy hunting.

The title is the narration, by lady Galadriel, from the beginning of the LOTR. And this movie has the same fairy tale feeling about it. You don't really know if something like this could actually happen, but the narrative is so strong that you simply desire the existence of parallel universes where something like this could occur. Even though Ben Whishaw is not the biggest name on the screen (Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman play main supporting roles in this movie) he completely takes the stage with his presence and you can only congratulate the casting director for his choice. The second thing that deserves a special mention is the cinematography which is simply stunning. Since this is the movie with the main focus on the sense of smell, the director did the second best thing using beautiful visuals to guide us trough the story. And the story is the last, but not the least part worth mentioning. Coming as an adaptation of a book, it manages to transfer the magic almost completely. All in all, a job very well done.

Rom-coms are a special type of movies. In some aspects they are equivalent to a junk food - something that's your guilty pleasure, that you know is way beyond your usual type of movies, but you just want a quick fix of dopamine and you go with it. And just like with the junk food, the ingredients always tend to be the same - people come for their favorite snack because they know what to expect. But just like when Coca Cola tried to introduce its new taste to the general public, these things usually backfire. So you either need to stick to the well known or try to be completely original, but you can never go half way. And this is what we see in this movie. They try to be unpredictable by putting in so many twist that an average soap opera wold be proud of it. Yet all this twists seem so predictable that you have to ask yourself - "why bother?". In the end you get something that neither smells nor stinks, and that's never a good thing.

I would give it 1 star, but there may be a few cheap jokes that will make someone laugh so I don't want to be too extreme. Anyway, do yourself a favor and skip this one. Acting is terrible, jokes are bad, there's sexism and stereotypes all over the place, but if none of this bothers you, you just found a right movie to watch. The other thing that you shouldn't be bothered with is complete predictability from start to finish, a proper snorefest. Not much more to say about it, really. I did my best to convince you to seek your fun elsewhere, but if you still decide to go with it you can't say you haven't been warned.

A question that often goes around is "What is art?". And looking, throughout history, what was considered "art" it seems we are far away from the consensus on this question. But most people would agree around a general notion that art is something that makes you feel, that makes you think, that sparks a fire inside you, that transforms you. And this movie, in my humble opinion, does all of that, therefore deserving to be called "a piece of art". In the age of information overload where we usually forget what we had for lunch two days ago, this movie will stay with you for a long time after you leave the cinema. And that's the best recommendation I can give.

"Historia magistra vitae est" is a famous Cicero quote that translates as "The history is life's teacher", and is sometimes used in a form of "Whoever doesn't learn from his own mistakes is doomed to repeat them". Even though this Michael Moore's movie speaks directly to American people, it also speaks to a much broader audience. The idea that in today's globalized world you can claim that you "know it best" or any other form of exceptionalism is ridiculous to the extreme. If it was up to me I would show this movie to anyone with some sort of supremacy complex (based on race, gender, nation, sexual orientation or something else). And I would heavily encouraged people to learn, as much as they can. Ignorance is the greatest plague of the modern society.

Looking at the ensemble and the potential that this series had in it's hands, I can't help but feel disappointed and cheated. I can't really blame the actors as it seems that they did the best they could with what was given to them. But the writing seems chaotic at best. There are shining moments but then pits of darkness as well. It looks like the creator didn't have a really clear picture of what he wanted to say and the whole series looks like a bunch of hits and misses. When it hits it will keep you at the edge of your seat tingling with excitement, but when it misses you'll have a hard time not to fall asleep. And it could have been great. If you don't have another fix for your Gothic cravings you can give it a chance. If you do, you won't miss much by not watching it.

The one thing that I expect from a good fantasy movie is to transfer me to that faraway place where magic is possible and fantastic creatures are free to roam the land. And this one only partially succeeded at this. Funny thing is that CGI parts look much better then the live ones. The thing that this movie is chronically missing is shooting at locations (something where LOTR, for example, excelled and became legendary for). Most of the live scenes are shot in front of the green screen and that is painfully apparent. Still I think that it will serve as a good opening for the beginning of the franchise and I hope that they will do a better job in their next attempt.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked "The Wings of the Dove" 26th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Having such a strong literary background is always a double edged sword, since people will (by default) have high expectations. And the execution falls very far from this. The only redeeming quality of this movie is its beautiful cinematography, but everything else leaves you completely cold. The personalities of the characters, the essential part of every great movie ever made, fall flat from the beginning to the end. You will not feel sadness, anger, love or hate for the participants, you just won't care. At least this is how it worked for me. Maybe I should (like a lot of other people) simply adapt lower standards for Hollywood made movies. But that wouldn't be fair, would it?

My God, what a terrible movie. I know that I shouldn't have high standards when it comes to rom-coms, and trust me mine are super low, but this one hits rock bottom. It is so condescending and sexist that I had a real hard time watching it to the end (I've watched it with a couple of friends so that made me stay). I can actually enjoy trashy films that are so terrible that they are awesome, but this one actually tries to make a point and it fails miserably. The writing is terrible, the acting is terrible, even New York can't help it (and that says a lot). If you are looking for a rom-com, do yourself a favor and skip this one. And then send me a "Thank you" note for those 90 minutes of your life that would gone to waste (plus millions of brain cells you would lose in the process).