Reviews

In "Aurora", the plot is basically: patient can't get Xanax so he gets a gun :) Thus, a failure of capitalism in Romania. (It was the early years)

In a pathetic replica of "Falling Down", Puiu's no Michael Douglas and the entire action was already summarized by another reviewer: potato peeling, domestic talk about whether Little Red Riding Hood's granny comes out naked from the wolf's belly, plus some close encounters of the third kind of male protagonist with female personnel of various businesses, lastly the shootings. This is not a Romanian "Taxi driver" and Puiu is no Fassbender in the shower either. Last one shoots people as professional hitman in his last film (I recommend that one instead, as it's just as long but more entertaining and poetic). Also, the police station doesn't look like those in the developed West and the sound quality is on par with the social interactions in the gloomy Bucharest ante-EU. Not that there was any whatsoever need for quality in sound. Or image.

Puiu's character is a twisted personality, one who wants rules bended and exceptions, just not for the people he kills and not when he "has to turn in" and to let the police do their job. A "justification" for his behaviour might be his sickness and the implied short life expectancy. The worldview of this maniac who has a college degree as an engineer and his living space chokeful of books but shares talibanic and orthodox mindset that wives can't ever divorce, is baffling and a source of absurd in itself.

This main character is neither a hero nor an antihero and this was neither a movie nor a lack of one.

It's sad this is all Romanian cinema has to come up with. Romanian cinema is dead. RIP. Previously, it was the case that the sound was poor, yet the films were great. Nowadays poor are both the sound and whatever lines their characters say. I am aware I may sound harsh and unjustified in my critique, after all it's a movie released 14 years ago. That's time even for police stations to modernise, Bucharester colon to live stress-free or at least a more streamlined acquisition of xanax and interpersonal speech. There's hope.

This is a tragicomedy. The thing with the ferocious hitmen is that there's no sense in killing the boy. At worse you can knock him and get his papers. Boy dead or alive at that point doesn't make a bit of difference anymore. Setting the end scene like that is sloppy.

Angelina is as committed to her role as a an air balloon is to staying put. She has much interesting bonding moments with the grieving youngster, telling him about 'saucy' blonde cheerleaders he'd be soon swapping spit with by the bonfire. Thank God or screenwriter, basically the same in this case, that she stopped at that and went no further like expected when the characters spend what could be the last night of their screen lives.

Everybody asks all the wrong questions, like who hired the hitmen and why, but nobody asks why is Hannah firewatching from the ground level? If that's how this works, then there's no wonder the increased rate of fires.

I've rated movies 1 out of 10 before, but for this one I believe negative numbers should be allowed too. It's a perfect 10, only it's the negative 10.

It started interestingly enough, built suspense from then but it ended weak. It also has plot holes you can lose yourself through. The whole thing with having a sister with connections in the police that keeps you informed of the state of the investigation, the way the escaping in the huge staircase was handled, the "solving" with the wrong turn on the driveway, the nice gimmick of the photograph pinned at the tattoo store and so on. Worth a view but lame writing. Reviewers enamored with dramatic male actor Casas, here up to the task/script, meaning lame, being abused by a goth mermaid who drags him into her net, alcolizates him, ties his arms, spits in his face, brands him with common words, almost gave him a STD and set up a fatidic encounter between victim and harmer, while having the time of her life watching who will be who. The acting was good, if by acting is meant, be the dumb while he gets dumber. Nothing gave anything away to him. Normally, people who ask you to pay for their hamburger, don't actually have a place of their own. I give a 5 for the effort and it's actually the chick that steals this show, not Casas. Pun intended btw.

By blood-thirsty babes so cold. If you somehow end in a huge mansion with a woman ressembling too much of a vampire and none of it gives anything away to you, then you definitely got unlucky and are still not bright enough to see it, like the lady herself acknowledges at the end. I had the patience of wanting to see how this is going about. The dialogue was akward, meant to be kinda childish, innocent and the male victim goofey. I want to see vampirellas try theirs with an action figure. Since those fit and forever young damsels of hell can vanish and reappear wherever and whenever they want, meatier males shouldn't pose problems and are actually more recommended for a vampire's diet. Of course, this way all the 'fun' would go out faster than a candle in a hallway transited by airy bloodsuckers and would need a more violent setting, lots of CGI and actual action. Vampires are in this 'enlightened' age quite overused. Instead of putting effort to write something about what the fellow and the ladies could be up to, the playwright resorts to the vampire gimmick and is done with it. He unlocked screenplay without touching the damn typewriter. A vampire himself. As 'beings' capable of (un)locking doors without touching them and travelling without vehicles, vampires are a fascinating film mechanic. We kinda are vampires ourselves when we unlock our phone just by facing it. I rate this one higher than others because the thirsty dames tried their best not to eat the fellow before eventually eating him and were disposed to converse, although not so much to sex. Due to low blood levels perhaps. They took their time and so did you, fellow vampire voyeur. Nasty. I thought at moments that maybe they'll spare him, which was a nice dilemma thrown in. Like a diet change, a change of heart or a conversion act, but nay, they really unchangeable, cold-hearted bloodsucking monads capable of dialectics and steady with their raw steak.

"Midnight mass" is about a mass(bunch) of islanders who give up their mundane "purposeless" lives to forever live at midnight because otherwise the sunrays would age them during the day and quite fast as the end will reveal.

The show is a mockery about an island population falling prey to a wolf in pastor's sheepskin. The 'Creator' of the show uses the Bible as divine inspiration for his hellish script and it works. There the angels are frightening and people commune and consume each other's flesh and blood. He made his crew enliven these words.

The pastor suppposed to lead this pack/mass (m)utters at times sentences that don't quite follow like "it can't be undone" (mocking the belief that "all can be undone") or exhorting believers to "listen to the Holy Spirit" and to their "conscience". Said "Father" will eventually acknowledge that eternal life was a mistake (=mockery) since it's not spent with his daughter, thus not worth it, although he pitched for it this whole time.

The Churchgoers are itching for miracles, thirsting for otherwordliness and eternal life. They get their ultimate present by not being able to ever die, but neither to live anymore under the sun. A subtle paradox. They become "saved" (read this in mockery speak as "damned") via the works of father Paul and the fervent apostle Bev and have to spend eternity forever hiding from the face of God/Sun.

The show ends in the final salvation, when the mighty UV-source, the chtonic Sun-God cleanses the doomsday cultists who can't find a single ark in sight because they burned all of their "boats" (sic) with which they could have sailed the daylight to live another night. Over and over. The revelation for them is that they return to ashes, just like Riley predicted by mocking the priest with the famous Bible verse.

Definitely an original show. I think what I saw had't been done before (citation needed) and "can't be undone". Looking forward to what else is in works from this director. Utterly hilarious when Bev calls the Muslim sheriff a terrorist, probaly more terrorizing for her than any angel :) Also a badass scene from Erin and the Angel. It stands right there in the panoplia of woman characters dealing with Aliens on screen but with none of the CGI.

A slow burner with a masterful atmosphere, setting and acting, but not quite a horror, more like a gothic story, which is actually welcome as nobody does them anymore, while everyone does horrors.

A good progressive film, it has all of them men: overweight, slack, corrupt, white and black, even an extrovert Hispanic klutz, some sharp and tough, one superlative psychopath, hitmen, fixers but also a cute mignon with contrasting ethic, fitness and especially gender with the rest of the staff (one that seemed to be 100% masculine, immoral and hazardous).

It's a man's world, lawless and chaotic that desperately needs a woman's touch or trigger. When the bullets start to fly, she's there to hold her ground and the workplace together but more importantly to send the last one of them back to its originator.

The movie slowly built tension through witty and tenseful dialogues some superb camerawork, but culminated in a gory and action-packed discharge.

An incendiary recommendation from this user. The rating I gave it doesn't mean it should win the Oscars (I rate badly Oscar winners because they are so privileged), but that it made me giggle enough (feminine trait?) and kept me interested until the very end(another one?).