A Monster Calls

This is how movies have to be done. Borrows freely from "Pan's Labyrinth" but is much better grounded, psychologically and metaphorically.

La La Land

The chorus of critics predicting the movie a flurry of the Golden Globes to the "La La Land" demonstrates how low the audience of the Hollywood movies has fallen. Not that the moviemakers cannot produce a fairly good fare anymore. The genial "Moonrise Kingdom" and very strong thriller "Drop" and "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" (eccentric tragicomedy) testify to the continuing strength of the movie industry. But it cannot exist without a sophisticated ecosystem of critics, promoters and moviegoing public. And in that department we are sorely lacking. Even traditional Hollywood know-how of the group dances--otherwise uneven "Hail Caesar" shows how to do it--is lame and is performed by a semi-amateur or haphazardly assembled crew.

Mars. National Geographic Series by Ron Howard.

The series "Mars" created by Ron Howard, a Hollywood whale, cannot be that bad, neither in concept, nor in execution. Model-class beauty as a crew commander also helps. Quadcopter-type drone flying on the surface of Mars is an absurdity. In full compliance with current media censorship code, the red stars of the Russian VVS were digitally retouched from the rescue helos in the documentary part. Series are heavily influenced by Stephen Petranek, Elon Musk's PR man and master plagiarist.

http://mars2044.blogspot.com/2014/07/sketches-of-space-habitats-i.html

http://mars2044.blogspot.com/2014/07/sketch-of-habitat-ii.html

They also freely borrow from Andy Weir and his "Martian" but he was co-author of a script and must be familiar with the Byzantine corridors of Hollywood. I suppose his copyright lawyers already worked out a fat settlement out of R. H.

Declassified - CNN.com

"Documentary" spy series mostly consists of interviews with retired CIA/NSA/FBIetc. spooks. It is produced by Mike Rogers, former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was probably hired by CNN--with enormous remuneration, obviously--to protect Christiana Amanpour&Friends from uneasy questions by FBI/IRS about her friendship with Gulf regimes and their security and media services. Has all complexity and depth of McCarthy era propaganda leaflets.

Lobster

Snobbish nonsense. Film critics who gave it 90% approval on rottentomatoes cannot distinguish between intellectual depth and intellectual pretense. This is a result of a generation of LA trust fund babies who do not have any life experiences outside of the internet and film school. Old Hollywood, at least, was sometimes a haven for people with completely different live paths.

Johnny was modern days Gary Cooper

All he did and did not was just super;

But his bliss came to naught

For he blindly forgot

To beware a Hollywood hooker.

A. S. Bliokh(C)

Sokurov. Frankofonia.

A nasty propaganda rag contrasting the "civilized" French who complied with German occupation and thus saved French cultural treasures and the "barbaric" Russians who resisted and lost priceless art and immense lives. Cheesy scene of a German soldier running after a French girl, but she refuses and he abandons the pursuit. The contemporary story of the Dutch captain and his sinking ship imposed quite incoherently. By the way, the treasures of the Louvre are portrayed quite sketchily and with little artistic insight.

P.S. Did he know that the infamous Vel d'Hiv is in less than an hour's walk from the Louvre? Probably, yes.