Pablo Podhorzer

People doing stupid things, a dumb premise and a psychiatric hospital out of the 1950s. A waste of time. As somebody else said, Moffat can make Doctor Who episodes with this kind of dread in his sleep, and they would be more satisfying.

I often search in Google Maps the village where my grandpa came from, deep in rural Poland. I look at the few houses and try to imagine which one was his. Then I go to the nearest town and look for the Jewish cemetery, or what's left of it. Is his family there? Did somebody bury the ashes? "Ida" is personal. Every shot a picture. Literally. I feel that space is similar to Lucrecia Martel's treatment in "The Headless Woman", where anything left out speaks volumes. Some reviewers note that this virtuosity can act as a distraction. Instead of losing yourself in the movie, we react to shots as they formally are, parts of an art piece. When we watch Welles flex his genius muscles in "Kane", we marvel at the inventiveness but we are not taken out of the enchantment. But given the current state of cinema we are perhaps happy enough to have something pretty to look at. Hey, at least Pawlikowski took the time to try! The photographic aspect alone deserves a re-watch. Not to speak about the big issue that shall not be discussed in Poland, the treatment of Jews not by the Nazis but by neighbors. I'm not going to write about it here. I know, they know, we know. It was done everywhere, also in the "advanced" countries in the West. I must say though, that I find Ida's situation depressing. If she doesn't have children, her line will have dissapeared from history, and the Nazis would have won. Maybe that's the point of the movie. Should you watch "Ida"? Yes. Is it boring? Only if you don't engage with it.

This is "The Force Awakens" of the Alien franchise. A rethread with a Young Adult novella cast without any sense of wonder, tension or ideological interest.

A modern masterpiece. This movie is a comedic journey through the maladies of the new twenties. It is a scattershot approach to systemic criticism but it works quite well by covering many bases. Are the problems presented just Third World Problems? No, the developed countries impose their will. Why there is no revolt by the Third World victims then? Because they must flow with the system to get the scraps. Was it better before, in communist times? It seems not, Ceaușescu was a totalitarian dictator. The film is dense with references, jokes and commentary, and will probably remain as a time capsule for future cinephile and historians.

The first half is a knockout. The concert concept is genius and Lil Shyamalan really transforms into a pop singer. Sadly once things go other places the whole concept suffer and spoken twists don't have the expected punch. It's a ride nevertheless, and I'm not sad that I went on it. Hey, at least it's an actual movie (I'm looking at you Ryan Reynolds).

The surprise of the year, please Hollywood listen, this is how you make a mid-budget film. A delightful cast (albeit wacky parents that detract from the proceedings) in a Mission (im)Possible satire of the perils and experiences of advanced old age. Funny, heartfelt, well filmed and edited. If I have a criticism is the distracting anamorphic lense, which keeps the borders of the screen continuously distorted and out of focus. This film is the reason why still we want to watch movies, a testament to the power of cinema to talk about our issues and leave a document of it for a future where we are gone.

Bad young actress that looks like a nepo baby, not even close to the level of attractiveness that the barebones script suggests, Chad actor and diversity. Given that Daisy has successfully played posh before and has shown to have at least some chops, fault must lie with the production. OK CGI that will be easily surpassed by AI graphics in a couple of years. It is a terrible movie, with a few tornado scenes. A simulacra of the original and similar summer blockbusters. Don't waste your money. Watch any Korean or Chinese action film instead.

Overwhelming Chinese 3D animation that goes waves above anything Pixar and neighbors can cook in their corporate offices. It is very imaginative but can't stop moving and is too dramatic for its own good. In the end, however, the message and sentiment wins over the shortcomings of the unbalanced tone. If you're going to pick an animated film about a child and their feelings, the infantile Inside Out 2 is not the choice to make. The real world is in this deep sea fantasy.

Slow, long, moody and irrational. Like Nolan for horror fans, wanting to be taken seriously. It is a really bad film dressed in A24 clothes trying to copy some "Silence of the Lambs". I don't know how the marketing for this was so successful.

Villeneuve is the go-to director for the orphaned comic-book nerds escaping the Marvel Titanic ship. Dune (part 2!) is composed of endless sands mixed with close-ups of angry people and Nolan womps. It's long, it's badly edited and it's boring. There's no interesting esthetics, no cinema to speak of. Even the CGI is tired. The Empire and other sections of "Foundation" had similar themes and did it a lot better. Part of the fault lies in Herbert's vision of Jihad and Saviours, part on Villeneuve's approach to filmmaking, at best suitable for "Arrival", his moody Doctor Who-ish film episode. The nerds scream for recognition, and this comes in the form of seriousness. American Cinema is in the agonal respiration phase, a somber period where every character must pensively look at the horizon while the bass drowns any thought. Only feeling is allowed, a longing for a past that is not coming back. The magic is gone, colors are muted, the fire is dying ember, just the red dust remains.