Paolo Sorrentino. The Young Pope.

Superb series by Paolo Sorrentino got high marks on rottentomatoes.com but not nearly as high as usual political correctness movies. In the first series, there were no cliches at all.  Our nurse Ratched forbade us to see the last series and the people told me that they were going from impeccable to just weird. Overall low marks, probably, happened because of the already mentioned inability of American critics' milieu to analyze imperfect heroes and plots without clear delineation of good and evil. They simply cannot imagine good people without character or much personality, villains without obvious vulnerabilities and trauma, but above all, that the most people are neither saints not hobs but somewhere in between. They also could not digest, for instance, that a conniving, spiteful and liberal Cardinal Caltanissetta is genuinely concerned about well-being of the Catholic Church, while a serious and conservative Cardinal Spencer is a power-hungry alcoholic. My only regret is that Torrentino killed Cardinal Dussolier and exiled Diane Keaton too early in the series to sustain the tension of the plot.

Silence, by Scorsese

Scorsese is one of the two most overrated filmmakers in the world. Spielberg is the second, but he assured his place in the history of film by completely changing the nature of blockbuster. Before Spielberg blockbusters ("Lawrence of Arabia", "Cleopatra", "War and Peace") were based on their cinematic strength. After Spielberg and Lucas they are based on the cult following, which happens after the movie has been released and seen by the public, selling of toys, character dolls, cosplay and other emblems of the movie having no particular relationship to the plot or the movie imagery.

The movie has a stunning cinematography (though only showing that Scorsese took the lessons of Kurosawa close to heart) but it is psychologically primitive and cliched. Particularly disappointing is a poorly explained transformation of the zealous missionary into the persecutor of Christianity after he performed the act of apostasy. Much more logical would be him demanding his own execution after the prisoners have been released and perishing in a futile struggle when his request was denied.

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.