dima-12

After a decade of globetrotting and attempts to evangelize Hollywood-style filmmaking in China and Arab world, Renny Harlin returns to stuff he does best.

Nine years ago, Aaron Eckhart starred in a masterful Philipp Stoelzl actioner Erased and in hie team up with Harlin he channels some of the good stuff that film brought us.

It's not just that Harlin is doing stuff he does best. It's also that he has the production environment that suits him.

He has a great cast and above all a game cast. He has Avi Lerner's Bulgarian action specialists in tow to inflict pain and have pain inflicted upon them. He has Greek locations that look great, like some shabby version of Italy. And he has 20 million bucks to spend.

And oh boy - he does deliver.

Aaron Eckhart is a great actor and he can be an action leading man anytime. Nina Dobrev found her footing here easily even though she comes from other genres. Ifenesh Hadera is femme fatale incarnate. Clifton Collins is a great villain and Tim Blake Nelson could do the ball busting boss in his sleep.

Action is old school. No gimmicks. No funny stuff. It's bone crunching fights, flesh piercing gunfights and high powered car chases. It's really well done.

Jason Bourne hit the Athens' Syntagma Square in the eponymous Paul Greengrass comeback to the franchise. Bricklayer continues where he left off and finds a nice milieu for the chicanery in volatile Greek politics. The script isn't a gamechanger but it's actually pretty decent when it comes to the setting and to the mismatched investigators element with Aaron Eckhart as a seasoned field operator and Nina Dobrev as a desk jockey trying to unleash her inner Jack Ryan.

This film could have been better. But I am not sure I would like it as much if it was.

I watched THE FAMILY PLAN, the latest Mark Wahlberg vehicle right after seeing BARBIE and it was a cathartic experience, a proper film for sane people. I actually re-ran it for days in order to cleanse my mind after the Greta Gerwig joint.

Thus I may be biased after BARBIE trauma but THE FAMILY PLAN is a generic action comedy done just the way it should be and proud of its cliches performed with utmost conviction.

You can't really say that Simon Cellan Jones made the Mark Wahlberg version of TRUE LIES because he is not the filmmaking god of Jim's stature. But if TRUE LIES was made a by a mere mortal then yeah we can say this is the Mark Wahlberg TRUE LIES.

Mark Wahlberg is such a talented performer and he is believable both in action and comedy and family situations. Michelle Monaghan delivers all that Jamie Lee Curtis brought to TRUE LIES, and she is a fully age appropriate partner to the leading man.

David Coggeshall wisely sticks to the Liman's MR AND MRS SMITH concept where we don't deal with the villains most of the time and there are no boring parallel plot strands with villians shouting orders and coming up with ways to hurt our heros. At the final showdown, we actually get a pretty fresh take on the dynamic between hero and villain.

The balancing act between action and comedy is well done. Simon Cellan Jones directs exciting action. He tries to keep the Wahlberg character to the absolute minimum when it comes to actually killing people but even when it comes to merely incapatiting opponents it is done in a visceral high octane Jason Bourne manner. So film is visually well-balanced both when it comes to style and rhytm. In a way Simon Cellan Jones in terms of vibrancy actually surpasses typical action comedy and offers a fully devoted directorial approach. Obviously, the director of photography Michael Burgess deserves to be mentioned as well.

THE FAMILY PLAN is like a rerun that you actually like better now then when you saw it first.

The key to understanding this film is Daily Wire's overall production strategy that basically had a very shrewd idea of reviving not just the lost moral and political values of Hollywood cinema but also its lost aesthetic values as well. So, Daily Wire basically started making films that people like to see but the studios stopped making them and somehow big tech streamers didn't pick up on those genres either. And in case of LADY BALLERS it's the goofy sports comedy that Will Ferrell used to make for New Line. So essentially this is a lost New Line sports comedy and they actually made one like this quarter of a century ago - JUWANNA MANN, right? I mean OK, JUWANNA MANN was a Warners release of a Morgan Creek production but nevermind, you know what I am talking about. And I love that this genre aspect is kept in a work that is more overtly political.

The other Will Ferrell connection is another shrewd decision of Jeremy Boreing not just directing but also starring in the film. It gives this film a bit of a Funny or Die sketch aesthetic even though it's actually not an anthology of sketch comedy, it's a pretty straight up narrative and Jeremy is quite good as the star actually.

But overall this sketch element is an interesting disclaimer that basically says - Yeah, this is topical unlike our other films which are movies first and foremost. This is a social critique and we are lampooning a particular phenomenon and I like this element which sort of distances itself from the main DW body of work, especially with the PENDRAGON CYCLE on the horizon which will really add depth not just to the streaming service but also to the library.

Now, when it comes to the film itself.

If we bear in mind that Jeremy intentionally went for this meme-like approach where this is an all-out parody of a troubling phenomenon in contemporary sports, this actually works pretty well as a movie.

It worked a lot better for me than for example Will Ferrell basketball comedy SEMI-PRO that he made for New Line around ten year back but of course it doesn't reach the emotional depth of RINGER with Johnny Knoxville which comes to mind.

But given this stylized comedy approach that stems from the contemporary school of comedy videos and sketch TV shows and stuff like that, actually LADY BALLERS works quite exceptionally as a movie and even the length of 110 minutes, which is by no means gentle, and it sort of is excessive if we look at it from the side, actually works out when you watch the film.

So even though I believe this was envisioned as a more a of a Christmas-special kind of thing, a bit of an internal send up of contemporary sports, what you got in the final product is a film that will be able to live on and really be a valuable part of any library, not just the DW one.

Of course, the film is openly political with all the attitude and naming names and Ted Cruz cameo and so on, but in the end it's actually a quite heartfelt experience with some common sense values put in place. So, however partisan it is on the outside it's actually quite universal on the inside.

And Jeremy is actually a talented performer. He really brought some kind of John Ritter humour to this character and not just edge but also warmth.

I think that the film will work well outside of the US because it deals with sports that people internationally actually know and understand the rules. Outside of the US, football sort of works in films because it's simple and it became global but stuff like baseball is an enigma.

Having these spoof approaches in a film is actually a tightrope act. And it's always a mess in the making but Jeremy really found his way around this. If we bear in mind that he is a guy who actually has a day job and doesn't waste his tame thinking about filmmaking techniques all day long, - I must say he proves to be a pretty solid comedy director with a pretty clear vision of what needs to be done and how the general narrative convention needs to be set up.

And him as a performer is really a highlight. I mean, his role has genuine emotion and comic timing, so it's not just a famous person being surprisingly good in an acting assignment. It's actually a well-done role.

So, outside of Jonathan Isaac cameo, I missed very little in this film. I got quite a lot out of it actually.

In this short film Mike Pecci showcases his ability to create an atmospheric and generally rich piece and this work really cries for a feature length version. This is the best way to look at it - as a piece of a bigger whole that will hopefully come one day.

Pecci's command of Soviet characters and setting is commendable. The recreation of an era is unsentimental and unpretentious. We feel mid-1980s Soviet vibe without anything being in the nose.

Acting is solid, photography is solid and colors are saturated and evocative. The horror aspect is done in the slow burn and arty manner. It is not too original when the characters literally delve into the horror but on the other hand I must commend Pecci for not going in the safe "less is more" and "horror is best left unseen" path.

Overall, it's a smartly distributed and promising showcase.

On the Line by Romuald Boulanger is a resourceful and well-acted Mel Gibson vehicle in which director smartly puts his star front and center for an hour and the half and charisma does the rest.

Mel Gibson's recent output - with the exception of extraordinary Father Stu - consists of so-called geezer teasers which featured him supporting roles simply distributed throughout the runtime in order to make him seem like an important character. However, unlike Bruce Willis whose late pre-retirement output was based around similar projects, Mel Gibson never phoned it in and always did his best even with low-grade material.

Thus giving Mel Gibson the actual spotlight and making the film that really relies on his star power in a leading role is a coup not just for this project but for Mel's fans as well. After a long while, maybe after Blood Father made by another Frenchman Jean-Francois Richet we see Mel actually running the proceedings with authority.

The first act of the picture feels not only genuinely inspired but loads of gallows humour and the genuine sense that Elvis Cooney is a real edgelord feels as if Mel was really hands on even when it comes to the script. In later developments which rely on the closed quarters thriller dynamics and feel slightly mechanical, Mel Gibson elevates the material.

Boulanger surrounds Gibson with an international cast with some great elements but their multiple accents do remind us that film is set in Los Angeles but shot in Paris. Maybe, some decisions could have been different when it comes to either setting or cast, but otherwise the production is resourceful and decently mounted.

In the end, the only element that could have been better is the thriller element. With more inventive set-up, something along the lines of good Blumhouse work and with Mel's performance which is already there this could have been a classic.

Anyhow it's a really good programmer with an inspired turn by Mel Gibson.

When Jordan Peele had a global success with Get Out I expected us to get even more politically charged, darkly satirical horror flicks than we eventually got.

However, American Carnage which borrows a quote from a Donald Trump speech manages to be a decent albeit trashy Get Out clone about a huge anti-immigration crackdown and immigrant kids getting a shot at life they had in the US before through a community service programme which is actually something more sinister.

Jorge and Jenna lead an attractive cast of appealing youngsters in a handsomely shot programmer that aims for the political crossover but lands safely as a fine homevid title that will show legs over time.

This film is a moody throwback to 70s and 80s political thrillers and it's set in the Nicaraguan controversies and such, mostly stuff of the Reagan era. At the same time, it's a character-driven picture and a tropical romance set in the world of international intrigue. So, yeah, there are a lot of moving parts, and Dee Rees takes the Michael Mann route of making the audience pay close attention to how the story unfolds without making it easy in the storytelling department. Anyhow, I managed to follow the plot and if you feel it's convoluted or silly you should consult Didion novel. Also it's an unofficial remake of Antonioni's PASSENGER with Anne Hathaway taking over the Jack Nicholson part. For me, it made sense for what it is - a backbone for a sweaty and highly stylized excercise in arty thrillers like they used to make them in the seventies.

Anne Hathaway is mesmerising in the leading role. Ben Affleck is good as the White House sleazebag involved with her. Toby Jones is a delight as an old semi-retired pimp who still knows how to create an intrigue. And above all else Bobby Bukowski does an impressive job as the director of photography. This film should be seen for his contribution alone.

Admittedly, it's an acquired taste but not the kind of film that should be hated with such passion. Check it out on Netflix and later on you can make a nice conversation by comparing it to Mark Neveldine's Panama which basically deals with same stuff but in a completely different production milieu and ambitions.

Mark Neveldine sure as hell fell from grace. After a string of great actioners that made decent bucks and an early Marvel production before MCU kicked in and Disneyfied everything, he broke up the partnership with Brian Taylor and soon enough we realized Brian was the talented one. Brian made HAPPY a brilliant classic of Peak TV insanity and MOM & DAD with Nic Cage while Neveldine shot mediocre VATICAN TAPES.

So, even though it's clear Neveldine is the less exciting of the CRANK guys still the notion of him making a film with Cole Hauser and Mel Gibson sounded like an irresistible proposition.

However, the film he got to make was shot in only 14 days - at least Neveldine claims so and as such a modest production it actually shows quite an instinct he has. Cole Hauser is the leading man. Mel Gibson is spirited and energetic in his supporting role - the kind he does now in geezet teaser films. But this film is not a geezer teaser film.

Geezer teasers are made by some by the numbers hacks - mostly stuntmen based on screenplays that play out almost as mock busters. PANAMA is made by a legit director and I said Neveldine's instinct shows. He does everything he can to keep things moving and visually interesting. When there is a convoluted dialogue exchange there is always a skimpily clad girl standing around. In some action sequences details show that there was a person trying insanely hard on this shoot. Details like the Contras guerilla leader performing air guitar with his Kalashnikov or Mel Gibson telling his victim in advance what he will do are nice touches that show Neveldine tried real hard.

If it wasn't for the score and the sound design which are beyond scandalous, PANAMA would feel at least 15% better than it feels now and this sound design is scoring fiasco is a bit of an enigma for me.

PANAMA has a great poster with Mel Gibson and Cole Hauser evoking the LETHAL WEAPON era and it fails in every respect to deliver on its promise. Like most of the VHS era flicks did but we still loved them.

And there is still a lot to like in PANAMA. There is Mel who is a galvanizing presence, there is Cole Hauser or shall I say Rip Wheeler from YELLOWSTONE. Not a lot action but some decent showdowns when we come to that. But overall there is director Mark Neveldine giving his all.

That's why I actually liked the film and given the budget it's tough to imagine something far better than this.

When you a paying customer, obviously you don't have to care about the hardships that came with the production of stuff you are buying. And yet again "Agent Game" is a film that demands a certain understanding of the kind of resourceful filmmaking that came into play here.

Mel Gibson and Jason Isaacs starred in a nine-digit budgeted "Patriot" over twenty years ago. So seeing them in a low-budget film feels as if they really fell hard. But other than that, the two of them along with Dylan McDermott really anchor this chamber piece that tries to play out as a topical spy thriller.

A couple of decent action sequences and veterans matching with current-ish TV performers like Katie Cassidy and Rhys Coiro make for a solid ensemble and the storyline isn't as convoluted as critics led you believe. No, it's nothing to write home about but it's a great device when you try to make a film on a shoestring budget with one great, one solid and some rather mid-level performers.

As a programmer this film works. The ending that implies further sequels seems a bit of unrealistic on producers' behalf but then again the open-ended climax may also amount to a resolution of sorts.

This is a B-movie concoction that works. If you are into that kind of thing. If you are into hate-watching, you could do a lot better with something a lot worse.

This short film is a satirical documentary about German tourists flooding Spanish seaside in all shapes and forms, both poor and rich, handsome and flabby and turn it into a luna park of sorts.

Photography by famous Jost Vacano delivers some of his signature tracking shots and the picture is crisp, with innovative camera angles and stylized look which doesn't compromise director's sense of irony.

Charlie Hunnam stars as Waldo, a maverick LAPD detective who quit the force and went from a star cop to a eco-obsessed recluse who decides to posses only one hundred objects at the time. His old flame, now a private investigator contacts him to help her with the case of famous British actor Alastair Pinch portrayed by Mel Gibson - now hamming it up in a network courtroom drama - accused of murder.

Waldo refuses the case but soon enough he gets sucked into it when his ex disappears.

Charlie Hunnam had a lot of success on the small screen but his big screen outings were somewhat overshadowed by IP or big name directors. This time it's the show that fits him well and showcases his strengths. There is a lot of Martin Riggs in Waldo but is this film the case of Mel Gibson passing the mantle to Hunnam like Garner passed it to him in Maverick?

In this case, maybe Sunset by Blake Edwards is the better comparison and in that film Jim Garner passed the mantle to Bruce Willis. However, I don't really feel Mel Gibson passed the mantle simply because even though Charlie and Alastair share the cause they don't share the action.

Mel's Alastair is a wonderful part and this is a great supporting role completely unlike his recent supporting outings in so-called geezer teasers. This is a fleshed out character and somewhat feels that the novel and the script were actually inspired by Mel. As we all know in his recent roles Mel Gibson pursued tortured characters with history of substance abuse seeking redemption and family reunion. And Alastair Pinch is just like that.

There are also minor details that feel like quips at Mel Gibson himself. For example he spoofs Hamlet, the character he played on screen in a kindergarten scene.

Even though, material is open to it - Mel never chews the scenery and he sure as hell doesn't overshadow Hunnam. It's a great supporting turn and a lovely reminder of just how good an actor Mel Gibson is.

Tim Kirkby's direction is precise. Hi staging is dynamic and Lyle Vincent's photography is crisp. It's a beautiful film to look at with great Los Angeles vibe and the cast of name actors surrounding Hunnam improves the film even though it could have drowned it.

The Howard Michael Gould spawned a series of books about Waldo. In the perfect world, this film would spawn a series of films. Unfortunately, private detectives never go out of fashion but they moved from cineplexes to streaming. It's a shame but that's our current climate. Hopefully this film will do well in streaming.

Almudena Monzu seems to be inspired by Reiner Werner Fassbinder in her energetic short film, created in 8mm fashion and set in a Madrid karaoke bar which also works as an underground brothel.

Even though the world around main characters and. The main karaoke bar location is contemporary e.g. It looks like 2013 - the feel of the film has a strong late 70s and early 80s vibe.

Vicky Luengo is mesmerizing as the girl who falls for a guy from the wrong side of tracks. Look this film up. It's quite beautiful while maintaining the set of intentional flaws reminiscent of Fassbinder.

This film was absolutely dreadful. I stumbled upon it while doing some research on how Eurovision was presented in movies and this short - surprisingly funded by Irish public money which usually guarantees a certain level of accomplishment - popped up. After tracking it on YouTube it turned out to be an unfunny and poorly made sketch.

The first season of "Sherlock" was cutting edge television that eventually launched Benedict Cumberbatch to Hollywood superstardom and Martin Freeman into something along those lines, while confirming Steven Moffat's reputation of premier British television writer. However, "Sherlock" went out of steam rather quickly and after the lukewarm second season, the third one was a mess, but even this streak of five weak episodes couldn't prepare us for the trainwreck of the New Year special set in Victorian times.

Moffat and Gatiss penned a messy, confusing screenplay with the plot that never seems coherent and the narrative that never kicks into gear. This screenplay is lacking both creativity and storytelling momentum. It is a stagnant affair, that ultimately betrays not only the initial concept of this "Sherlock" reboot but Arthur Conan Doyle's stories as well.

"Zdravko Velimirovic's O Tempo dos Leopardos is, on the contrary, an epic film, the only film of the corpus directly representing the Liberation Struggle in its quotidian and military operations. A fiction feature co-produced with Yugoslavia, this socialist realist film treats the Liberation Struggle in the form of a didactic coloured model. If Guerra states that 'we cannot make political films on the basis of political strategies or practices',46 in O Tempo there is an evident hiatus between the film's political content, its conventional form and its teleology. It poorly serves a cause - the mythification of the liberation struggle - not hesitating to have as protagonists Pedro, The Leopard (Santos Mulungo) and Ana (Ana Magaia), whose physical and moral characteristics are evidently inspired by Samora and Josina Machel. What is at stake here is not merely the Liberation Struggle, but rather primarily - and mostly - the so-called 'civil war', therefore, not a past tense, but a lived present and expectations of the future. Consequently, at a discursive level, there is no question of returning to the past; instead it turns towards the future, the radiant future of the represented liberated areas, which might extend to the entire territory, which becomes even more important in view of the temporal dislocation performed by the film's narration. Nevertheless, what is effectively prefigured are the historical events to come, the death of Machel, anticipated by Pedro's crucifixion, and the failure of Mozambique's political and cultural project.

Guerra states that 'aesthetics is always politics' and that 'we cannot separate politics from aesthetics'.47 The political implications contained within the aesthetics of Velimirovic's film seem to assert that FRELIMO's cultural project had by then attained their fixed rigid aesthetic forms. At least that is the impression that the film leaves regarding the horizon of expectation.48

The exotic representation of the landscape and cultural forms of expression do not differ essentially from the way colonial cinema depicted the colony. At the same time, on the ideological plane, it is important to note the insistence on national unity and the notion of mogambicanidade ('Mozambicanity'), which would result from a synthesis between tradition and modernity. The indirect punishment of traditional power structures that refused to support the Liberation cause is in this regard highly symptomatic. What is remarkable in the film is the way it represents the transformation of cultural forms of expression by the Liberation Struggle, for instance in the sequence showing the FRELIMO guerrilla fighters dancing while holding rifles. On the other hand, if in the three films analysed here there is a common reluctance to use archive images from the conflict, O Tempo shows archive footage from Liberation Struggle through a second-degree narration, from which it would appear demonstrable that the documentary images and the film shots belong to the same historical and ontological category. This is even more relevant since it occurs in a film teleolog-ically-oriented by consent, but which deliberately problematises the mechanisms of propaganda, as well as the process of heroisation it enacts.

Raquel Schefer"

Even though I feel this approach makes a lot of great points, Velimirovic's film is a pretty solid mainstream war feature. Bearing in mind that he worked with amateur actors with little or none previous acting experience, the characters work on most levels, and some of the colonisers bring more depth than one may imagine in such a feature. Velimirovic grinded his axe in Yugoslav WW2 films so his staging of action sequences is pretty competent. Nowadays seeing guys blasting AK-47s in Ex-Yugoslav films is quite common. However, seeing action sequences set in contemporary times when modern weaponry was actually quite rare in Yugoslav films (this film was made in 1985 and the events it depicts are set in 1971).

Thus, maybe Velimirovic's film doesn't have the sufficient gallery value as something by Godard or Godard-like. But then it can be played on any TV network without any shame. It is a lasting topical film about Mozambican struggle and anti-colonialism. It sure doesn't reach potency of Gillo Pontecorvo's Il battaglia del Algeri but it stands on its own.

Kaspar Barfoed is the Danish director whose debut The Numbers Station is an actual rip-off of Daniel Espinosa's Safe House. While Espinosa is Swedish he also hails from the Danish film scene since he studied film school there so I guess the fact that he not only made the rip-off of a far superior film but also of a compatriot's Hollywood debut, makes Barfoed's entry into the English-speaking game quite humiliating. Truth be told, I am very surprised that Barfoes's debut is such a lukewarm concept since Kandidaten did well, got picked up for a remake and Barfoed himself was attached to a handful of projects.

The Numbers Station shares not only the plot with Safe House but also Liam Cunningham in a role of a seasoned professional spy. It only adds to this overwhelming feeling of deja vu.

The Numbers Station feels like an extended TV pilot. John Cusack and Malin Akerman seem to be fully focused on their roles but the screenplay is simply underdeveloped and even Barfoed's very decent direction cannot elevate this material.

Cusack's role of CIA hit-man has nothing to do with stuff that he delivered on this same subject in Grosse Point Blank or War Inc in particular. Obviously, this film is his step towards DTV productions, even if this film is upscale DTV.

'Daleko nebo' is a film by Stjepan Cikes who is mostly known for documentaries. Cikes was employed by Yugoslav Army Film Company and his field of work were aviation documentaries. Thus it comes as no surprise that he directed 'Daleko nebo' a film that can easily be described as 'Top Gun' before actual 'Top Gun'. This is a propaganda piece about a young MiG-21 pilot who experiences a traumatic flight and the tension triggers memories of his lifelong fascination with flight. Among other things this memories include clashes with his mother who tried to prevent him from entering Yugoslav Air Force School in Mostar since his father died as a Yugoslav Army pilot. Afterwards, in school he faces other pressures coming from the fact that his father is a legend among Yugoslav Army pilots. 'Daleko nebo' essentially threads the same path like 'Top Gun'. Both Maverick and the lead character in 'Daleko nebo' share a trauma of loss and thus join a long line of similar inspirational tales. Not unlike Maverick the young pilot in 'Daleko nebo' is an adrenaline junkie at his core and proves it by performing unwarranted parachute jumps and above all by trying to land a malfunctioning plane - a feat that cost his father dearly. Maverick's girl is a teacher a highly fetishistic position in such a male dominated environment while in 'Daleko nebo' the girl is a ballet dancer, quite a bit fetishist occupation in its own right. However, 'Daleko nebo' differs form 'top Gun' by its lack of jingoism. Unlike Maverick who is sent to dogfight with enemy aircraft, Yugoslav heron is sent to inspect an UFO that turns out to be a weather balloon. Eventually, even with all its fetishism it doesn't glamorize Air Force and it is hardly a film that managed to draw some new applicants for Military Academies. Unlike Hollywood, Yugoslav cinema had propagandist agendas that were so scrupulous that at certain point they became ineffective. Cikes on the other hand was a third-rate director and he definitely wasn't the right man for this job. In collaboration with DP Petar Lalovic he managed to capture some classy aerial shots. However, he used a lot of documentary footage and a lot of it matches quite poorly with the rest of the material. Mig-21 is an airplane that rarely starred in a film and Cikes isn't the one to put it on the map like Tony Scott did with F-14. Some details like very spooky astronaut-like suits worn by Mig-21 pilots get lost in Cikes's depiction. Score by Ksenija Zecević cannot exactly match Giorgio Moroder's hipness so the film is burdened by an ethnic-influenced score that really doesn't work out. 'Daleko nebo' is an ideal companion piece to Dejan Sorak's 'Najbolji' because both films were propaganda features about virtues of Yugoslav People's army. However, 'Najbolji' was actually made under exact influence of 'Top Gun' even if its plot is more reminiscent of 'Heartbreak Ridge'. In essence, Yugoslav cinema had quite a lot of success with war films but it fared rather poorly when it came to films about virtues of contemporary military cadre. Military service is an important part of Yugoslav collective memories since it was obligatory but when it comes to cinema, best films about it are those that are actually criticizing it.

"Pogon B" by Vojislav Nanovic is one of Yugoslav films made in the fifties that tackled the subject of industrialization and the accompanying social changes. "Pogon B" is just one of such titles - it is a companion piece to Jovan Zivanovic's "Zenica" and "Te noci" while Bulajic's "Uzavreli grad" is more of a psychological study of such social changes.

"Pogon B" is obviously derived from American B-pictures about macho professionals handling difficult and dangerous jobs. Some Howard Hawks works come to mind as an important influence.

Hawks' films were set in a capitalist environment while "Pogon B" is set in Socialist Yugoslavia. Thus it is very interesting to see how Nanovic shifts certain focal points of the story. In Hawks' films the main character is a pro facing extreme demands from the owner or maybe even the threat of losing the job if the work isn't done. In Nanovic's film, workers in an oil plant will merely be reassigned if their recent oil well fails to deliver crude. Thus, their passion for oil rigging is purely personal - it is not defined by any kind of economic pressure and there is no class struggle between the blue collar workers and their white collar CEOs. To the contrary, CEOs are treated as villains simply because they are too bureaucratic and laid back while workers bring an outstanding passion to the oil business.

Nanovic preserves Hawks' sense of strong homoerotic bonds among the male characters. Nanovic and Hawks start off with bromancing characters but the by the end of the film, each of one of the machos decides to move on to the next oil well instead of staying with his designated lady that he romanced during the course of the picture. Such homoerotic undertones are present in Zivanovic's "Te noci" that is quite similar to "Pogon B".

Of course, Hawks' characters are motivated by something more than money, they also bring personal initiative and passion to the job but in a completely different macro-economic climate. On one hand, Nanovic's film can be perceived as a direct critique of Socialist management but it can also be understood as glorification of such system since it is able to bring out creativity of an individual even in the toughest of jobs.

Nanovic is also under influence of Cluzot's "Wages of Fear" and he showcases that fascination in a very suspenseful sequence of oil rig fire.

"Pogon B" is a very solid and muscular Yugoslav film in hawksian tradition that happens to age very well.

"Erogena zona" by Dejan Karaklajic is a neat and multi-layered urban melodrama that beautifully depicts the tensions of post-Titoist Yugoslavia in the early 80s. It was released one year after Tito died and it is pretty obvious that you can see traces of consumerism and proto-capitalist tendencies in Yugoslav society that began in the 70s. At this time, Yugoslava, a lot like the characters of this film already drive BMWs, play tennis and dream of private ownership over companies. Still, there are economic behemoths of Tito's heyday like the poultry factory that employs the central character Moca, but even those companies act a lot like some sinister corporations from a 1970s movie with Robert Redford than 50s Yugoslav films that glorified industrialization.

After the so-called Black Wave of the 60s and 70s, Yugoslav cinema was flooded by characters who had no education and employment. The new generation of directors educated in Prague changed that climate by introducing a gallery of characters who had university degrees and yet found it it difficult to find their way in Yugoslav society, even if they were employed. "Erogena zona" so vividly depicts such contradictions. Karaklajic studied film in Belgrade and yet his screenplay was polished by Goran Markovic and Rajko Grlic who were both alumni of Prague Film School and it shows.

"Erogena zona" was Karaklajic's second feature film. His debut "Ljubavni zivot Budimira Trajkovica" was a huge commercial hit and allegedly it was one of Tito's favorite movies. "Erogena zona" however was deemed a failure and Karaklajic quite directing after it. It's a big loss because "Erogena zona" is underrated in many aspects including the masterful use of Milan Gutovic in the leading role. Gutovic became extremely popular later on in some populist comedies bit in this film he shows some classy action chops and excellent underplay.

"Erogena zona" is one of the Yugoslav films from the 80s that deserves to be rediscovered.

"Besmrtna mladost" is a story of urban youth resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Belgrade. Director Vojislav Nanovic was one of the key resistance members during the war so his debut is a pretty faithful account of operations that underwent in Serbian capital. Nanovic's film aged pretty well and if you bear in mind that it was made in 1948, only three years after the war when both the state and film industry were at the very beginning of rebuilding this feature is quite a feat. Nanovic's film is the first one to feature stories of urban guerrillas in Belgrade. Later on, these stories became very popular in a famous TV show "Otpisani" which swapped historical accuracy for intense comic book style action. "Otpisani" was a very successful franchise and it spawned two feature films. This is why Nanovic's work is less known but on the other hand today it stands as some kind of reminder how stuff that was exploited later on in "Otpisani" really looked like. In cinematic terms, one of the most important elements of Nanovic's film is the very setting. The film was shot only three years after the war so a lot of buildings still bore damages caused by both Nazi and Allied bombings. None of the following WW2 maintained such authentic setting. "Besmrtna mladost" for all the fans of Yugoslav partisan films and all the researchers on the subject.

"Pre istine" is a visually striking and angsty urban melodrama of two men who meet in swinging 60s Belgrade after a traumatic experience in WW2. They reconcile and realize that even though one of them was a patriot and the other one was a traitor during the war, their position switched because the traitor was rehabilitated while the patriot became a disgraced Party official on the run.

Kokan Rakonjac and DP Aleksandar Petkovic did an outstanding job when it comes to the visual concept of this film. Their use of low-angles and camera movements is outstanding and the approach to use of lenses is ahead of its time. Thus cinematography of this film really uses attractive urban locations to the fullest. With such charismatic leading men like Ljuba Tadic and Branko Plesa on screen, "Pre istine" is quite a feat, Sadly, Rakonjac died just a year after this film and managed only to shoot one more feature - "Zazdidani" - an unofficial sequel to "Pre istine".

In this phase of his career, Rakonjac was obviously in outstanding creative shape and the history of Yugoslav film could have been different had he lived.

"Nevjera" is an old-fashioned love story set in 19th Century Dubrovnik. The love story is situated in the times of very intense class struggle in Dubrovnik with local aristocracy losing wealth and clinging only to their tainted titles, working class gearing up to ask for their rights and obscure characters leaving Dubrovnik for colonized continents and returning home rich.

Since this screen version of the famous Ivo Vojnovic stageplay "Ekvinocij" was made in the fifties in Communist Yugoslavia, obviously the class-struggle and anti-colonialism are emphasized.

However, the emotional core of the film is the love story of a poor carpenter and nobleman's daughter. Their forbidden inter-class romance is jeopardized when a rich old hustler comes back from America to look for a wife and picks nobleman's daughter while forcing her father to accept his proposal in exchange for write-off of his debts. Plot thickens when the poor carpenter finds out that the rich hustler is his father.

Vladimir Pogacic's direction is a bit dated by fifties' standards and "Nevjera" feels as if it belongs in the 1930s. However, on the emotional level, "Nevjera" works and stands as one of the purest examples of period melodrama in the history of Yugoslav cinema.

When I decided to check out "The Tournament" the expectations were moderate. Actually I expected it to be a pleasant DTV title with a couple of cool actors.

What I got instead was a thrilling actioner that surpasses most of the theatrical releases of the same genre. The action is hyperkinetic and violent, and Scott Mann has undisputed Hollywood potential.

The plot about the assassin tournament is clean and simple, a lot like "Taken" and when it comes to comparison between these two films, only advantage for "Taken" is Liam Neeson. "The Tournament" provides solid acting but it doen't have such a potent star. Actually, if we consider its budget, "The Tournament" is really outstanding in terms of casting because it combines available theatrical-feature actors like Kelly Hu, Liam Cunningham,, Robert Carlyle and Ving Rhames with top DTV names like Scott Adkins. Scott Adkins' potential was obvious ever since he first appeared in Isaac Florentine films and in "the Tournament" he is accompanied by Sebastien Foucan, the parkourist we remember from "Casino Royale".

Fight scenes are marvelously staged, with great fight choreography, but also outstanding gunplay and vehicle stunts. When it comes to the sheer amount of action "The Tournament" gives you the most for bang for the buck. It is very hard to invent some new kinds of action set-pieces and choreographies but in a couple of scenes "Rhe Tournament" does that.

Also, you must bear in mind that action is very violent and gory. The sheer amount of gore is comparable to Neill Blomkamp's "District 9". Bloodletting is stylish and lavish and Scott Mann really has the guts (quite literally) to pull it off.

I am surprised that this film failed to get theatrical release. I mean, it's quite obvious that American distributors wouldn't release because none of the stars are a draw in the US but I guess it should've worked quite well internationally.

Writer Gary Young was lucky to move on into theatrical business with Matthew Vaughn production "Harry Brown". I hope Scott Mann will accomplish the same.

'Krvavi put' would have been a routine POW drama if it wasn't for the fact that it is a Yugoslav co-production with Norway. Such a strange alliance was formed in 1955 in order to bring the story of Yugoslav POWs who were sent to labor camps in Norway during WW2 to the big screen. This film combines Yugoslav and Norwegian cast and characters use their own languages which adds to the realism of this story. Obviously it was very tough for Yugoslav POWs and Norwegian patriots to communicate but still they found a way to help each other and organize random escape plots. However, all that is gained from the presentation of the language barrier is lost in terms of plotting and visual style. This film doesn't benefit from its Norwegian crew, the sets look generic and could have been shot anywhere in Europe.

Also, the whole deeper meaning and conflict of people being relocated from their natural habitat in Balkans to Scandinavia, is lost due to the fact that most of the film is set indoors.

Thus, 'Krvavi put' is for WW2 completists only, and it won't taint the glory of Anthony Mann's 'Heroes of Telemark'.

Zone of the Dead is the first zombie actioner produced in Serbia. It belongs to a growing Serbian genre scene that has quite a few surprises up its sleeve and since 2002 produced some fine films like slasher TT Sindrom by Dejan Zecevic and youth oriented creature feature Sheitan's Warrior by Stevan Filipovic. Unlike typical European genre fare outside of Italian film industry, this feature is very orthodox in its approach to the genre substance. Maybe because Italians were involved as co-producers. The plot is very Carpenteresque and pits a group of police officers escorting a prisoner against the zombie infestation caused by an ecological disaster.

Zone of the Dead doesn't try to expand and bend the genre territory, it opts to be exploitation in the Italian sense and reminds of Italian exploitation films from the early 80s with Fred Williamson in charge. Only this time, Ken Foree, the sole zombie film icon, is in charge and headlines this production. It is refreshing to see such deadpan zombie concept, especially when genrebending projects like World War Z and Zombieland start piling up. This film is trying to play the zombie threat straight and to spice it up with gunfights and action and I guess audience of Resident Evil-series will find it useful to fill the gap between installments of that movie franchise.

The set-up echoes Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and the zombie action is along the lines of Lamberto Bava's Demons. It is very uncommon for Serbian cinema that the violence and zombie mayhem are handled quite well, and Zone of the Dead delivers the goods on the level of contemporary B-movie fare. Special kudos go to Miroslav Lakobrija, this film's makeup wiz who did a great job with all kinds of bloodletting and zombie prosthetics.

Ken Foree is quite solid in his first leading role in over 30 years and Kristina Klebe uses her opportunity to expand on the 'scream queen' reputation gained in Rob Z|zombie's Halloween remake. Up until now, a relative unknown Emilio Roso, who was cast as The Prisoner, creates a fine variation on Napoleon Wilson.

Directors Milan Konjevic and Milan Todorovic with their Serbian crew bring a lot of energy to the proceedings. Even though this film was made on a moderate budget it still delivers shootouts, chases, hordes of zombies, crashing cars and full on human vs zombies battle climax. Zombies in the film are both the slow ones invented by Romero and fast ones championed by Snyder so it is obvious the authors of the first Serbian zombie film wanted to cram all of the zombie traditions into one film. The only zombies missing are those who rose form the grave.

Zone of the Dead is a must for the genre fans, not just as a curio since it was made in Serbia, but also as a much needed shot of VHS era Italo influence exploitation that you may need in these ironic genrebending times. It is currently in Serbian cinemas. It is also about to hit Spanish and Italian cinemas in May while other territories will certainly get a DVD release in no time.