Lima

It's a mystery to me how this brilliant flick didn’t get a wider audience response. What Stone's Platoon meant for an "alternative look" at the Vietnam conflict, Kathryn Bigelow's film means for the current U.S. Army mission in Iraq, and for its guys, who are there trembling for their lives and counting each day until the end of their tour of duty. The film doesn't moralise, it doesn't lecture, it just offers blood, sweat, frustration, the dust of Iraqi roads, fear of death and general paranoia, where even an Iraqi with a camera can be a potential terrorist. Not since Mendes's Jarhead has there been such a good military-themed film.

The action this time practically doesn't move from the bay at Red Cliffs and most of the it deals with interesting pre-battle tactics, intrigue (I was most impressed by the cunning acquisition of 100,000 arrows) and preparations for the decisive clash. At the end, Woo literally starts a war orgy that is so megalomaniacal that my receptors couldn't keep up with the fatigue by the end. Nevertheless, I found the battle scenes in the first part more interesting, both in terms of tactical intent and the display of the combat superpowers of the main characters, which take a back seat in the second volume (which I duly regretted).

I last experienced similar feelings with Bondarchuk's perhaps unsurpassable War and Peace. We’ve been missing a historical spectacle like this for a long time. 5* for the lavish production design, the gigantic battle scenes and especially the elaborate combat choreography, whether it was the individual generals who could dust a pissed off Hulk like nothing, or the overall battle strategy (especially the "turtle" formation and the neutralization of the cavalry units at the end of the film were a feast for the eyes). But it is not only the battles that keep the viewer alive; the individual characters of the protagonists, where intelligence mixes with fierceness, tenderness and discretion, were also engaging, so maximum satisfaction. And of course, John Woo's essential film fetish – the dove – is not missing either :o)

A Western without a shootout is like a cowboy without a horse, and there are very few here, but that doesn’t matter much. The problem is that the narrative is too slow, hardly leaving banal dialogues, and it lacks tension that would move the story forward and make it more engaging. Ed Harris as a screenwriter and director didn’t disappoint, but he didn’t impress either.

A worthy remake that does not put its predecessor to shame. The original was released in the 1950s, during the raging Cold War, and spoke with much more urgency, so the pleas that "We can change!" in the current version sound rather empty, but technically, it's clear that this spirited little sci-fi film has benefited from a modern coat of paint, especially in the character of the alien guardian Gort, who surpasses his predecessor in terms of impressiveness. The charismatic Keanu Reeves certainly didn't disappoint, but I'd love to shoot the whiny Smith to the Milky Way.

In the first half, Luhrmann tells the story with gusto, passionately and fully applying his almost grotesque sense of humour (which I like and which his previous film, Moulin Rouge, was packed with), but when he arrives in Darwin midway through the film, he seems to wave a magic wand, and the narrative, full of life and the enchanting atmosphere of the Australian outback, becomes a game of playing with the audience's patience, where it's as if the filmmakers are trying to see what clichés and screenwriting gimmicks they can get away with. That cheesy ending is something that not even Danielle Steele, the queen of rosy books, would dare write. Still, I sense Luhrmann's sincere effort to pay homage to his beloved native Australia throughout the work, and so I can't entirely damn it.

After a second screening, I was able to fully appreciate this moving meditation on life and death. It just confirmed for me the well-known truth that great films are to be enjoyed in the darkness of the cinema, with quality sound and image, and that it is for films like this that the big screens are made. The film flew by so that the 2 and a half hours felt like half an hour, I lost track of time and enjoyed the hypnotically captivating symbiosis of image and music. Then the emotions surfaced naturally, I would have set a lot of the thoughts expressed there in stone, and I guess it's true that the more you have experienced and the more you realize the transience of time, the more the film speaks to you internally (my mother was bawling like a baby). Cinema magic. Thanks, David.

By Caesar! Throw Fréderic Forestier to the lions!!. What a sad rape of a brilliant comic book. Only a few funny fragments were taken out of it, the rest was filled with humour on the level of the lamest TV shows. The previous film adaptation wasn't great either, but at least it compensated by sticking to its source; this one was all over the place! René Goscinny must be turning in his grave.

My Oscar favourite this year. After the awful The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard must have had a fit of creativity and I applaud him. This film is one of the best political dramas in many years. It is engagingly shot, not boringly descriptive, on the contrary, through an interesting verbal TV duel between the two leading characters, it presents the socially tense period after the biggest stain on the political culture of the history of the United States, the Watergate affair (when a large part of the American society could not stomach Ford's amnesty on Richard Nixon's transgressions). With his piercing gaze, thoughtful diction and mesmerizing confidence, Frank Langella is about ten times more devilish than Nixon himself, and I hope he has a pleasant Oscar night.

A naive, clichéd and predictable fairy tale about how a poor boy came to happiness. Boyle's film captivates with the sweeping realities of contemporary, overpopulated India, but otherwise has little else to offer. The childhood scenes are excellent, full of life and filmmaking passion, but the rest follows the same routine as many other films, without a hint of surprise, suspense or believable emotions. Bollywood came to Hollywood with a bang and everyone sat on their asses. Not me, though, sorry.