Iliyana

Basically, "Containment" is based on a popular Belgian series called "Cordon" but as a whole it's just another poor example of remaking successful European movies/series. I found the original Belgian drama to be quite gripping from the very start and as the story developed, it got better and better.

However this could not be said at all about "Containment" which seemed to me very chaotic and the acting was uninspired and not convincing at all. Compared to the original series where the characters were realistic and very engaging, here the cast didn't do justice to the story and the acting was flat and one dimensional. Even the overuse of cheap cinematographic tricks and dramatic music couldn't save it.

So please ignore the bad acting and the even poorer script here and watch "Cordon" instead! Personally I am hoping for another season of the Belgian series!

What a beautiful and quirky documentary! A documentary that is funny, poetical and social, all at the same time without boring the viewers with false pretences and intellectual babble.

The story reminded me of a mosquito flight – it commences than it stops, it hops on and off the different characters and occasionally it bites. Interestingly the director Andrey Paounov chose to focus on the smallest of creatures — the mosquito — as a way of exploring the bigger issues: what are we here for? How do we live our lives? How did the past affect us and what are we going to do about the future?

And although the whole documentary is based on both humorous and tense juxtapositions, in the end the most important message of the film comes from the mouth of one of the characters: "There are mosquitoes everywhere!" As if he was saying there are problems everywhere but life goes on. We could deal with them and move on!

Aleksander Morfov is a great theatre director and probably that's the reason why the film somehow doesn't fit on the big screen. It is indeed very theatrical, the scenes, the dialogues, the characters almost everything.

And the whole story quite frankly lacks any depth. It's actually more like a dirty joke filled with black humour and curses which in the end needs explanation because you have missed the point somewhere along the line. And yes, life in Bulgaria can be very surreal at times but isn't that modern life everywhere around the world? It's not some kind of Balkan trademark!

This is an imaginative and lively comedy by the French director Catherine Castel who manages to tell us a very familiar story in an unusual way.

The cast is very good with strong performances by both the leading actors (Aura Atike and Antoine de Caunes) and the supporting ones (among them the charming Victoria Abril) and my family and I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

It's very refreshing to see that modern filmmakers can still produce funny and intelligent comedies which can be as gripping as the fast paced actions and thrillers which overflow the cinemas these days.

We can be emigrants not only when living abroad but very often we can become one even in our own country. The director Ivailo Hristov takes us to an incredible journey full of love and betrayal, hope and disappointments, but mostly a journey every one of us has taken at one point in our lives. And his story is revealed in full by the gripping performance of the three main characters played by Deyan Donkov, Ivan Radoev and Valeri Yordanov.

Thank you, Ivailo, for restoring my hope that Bulgarian modern cinema is not hibernating but still producing good films! I've always admired your acting career but now I can honestly say you are a great director as well!

Daniel Cebrián's gritty drama "Segundo asalto" is another wonderful example of how European directors are more willing to explore the territory of painful, irresolvable emotions and are not afraid to present us with films that dare to leave us with questions and sometimes even in tears. Because real life hurts, and there is no shame in asking the stories we tell one another to mirror some of that pain. Behind the simplicity of the plot lies a very powerful and touching coming-of-age drama. Angel (Álex González) is a twenty-year-old loner and an aspiring boxer. He is being trained by Paco "the Tiger" for his shot at the big time. But Paco's idealistic advice is starting to sound hollow, since away from the ring, things are falling apart for Angel. The director skillfully rolls the camera through the streets of South Madrid and thus reveals the squalid chaos of life in the poorest districts that makes the poverty tangible and looks like exactly the kind of background anyone would want to escape from. So when Angel encounters the dangerously charismatic Vidal (Darío Grandinetti), a career criminal who aggressively tries to persuade him to take "the easy route", the young boxer is virtually torn in two directions - forced to choose between the familiar environment of the boxing ring, and the seemingly "easy" route to which Vidal beckons. As a result, Angel's sense of stability begins to crack and weaken under this external pressure, and he starts to lose his bearings. But ironically, by responding to Vidal's proposition, Angel can determine his core values and goals and the direction of his life, and thus gain the inner strength necessary to move forward. The authenticity of Angel's inner struggle is reinforced by a brilliant photography that gathers the sad light, with all the greys of the places he goes. It is also emphasised by the intelligent use of the sound track that highlights the atmosphere, for example the incredible Bajofondo Tango Club music. Another very interesting thing about the film is the open ending. It seems that the final desire of the director Daniel Cebrián was to get to see Angel and Vidal fight together - like a symbolical fight between old and new, between good and evil, between right and wrong, between the past and the future. This not only highlights the general idea of the movie but also shows what a remarkable cinematic effort Cebrián's "Segundo asalto" is and would hopefully leave the spectator satisfied by interpreting the ending in one's own way!

The plot appears to be very simple. After the unexpected withdrawal of the initial candidate, Michel Dedieu is designated by his party to continue the presidential campaign. Dedieu, a reticent candidate, must face its adversary the popular Eric Carson during a televised debate. In order to improve Dedieu's image in front of the media, he gathers a group of advisers in a residence in province. There he has only a few days to prepare himself for the coming debate. But behind this simple plot lies a very complicated and intriguing subject. Indeed Niels Arestrup has chosen not a particularly easy subject for his first film as a director. But compared to some American movies on the subject, "The Candidate" succeeds in reflecting very well not only the French political mentality but the whole European as well. And the ups and downs of the central character, played brilliantly by the talented Yvan Attal, are revealed with such elegance that only an actor turned director could achieve. The film itself is not your usual political drama packed with fast paced dialogues and explosive scenes. It actually possesses the fine quality of a good theatrical performance which makes it an even more enjoyable viewing!

We are watching the world unfold through the eyes of a child and within minutes we are immersed in his reality as if in our own. What an amazing movie! It's one of those films that not only provokes you to start asking questions but also makes you try to think and find some answers.

And what incredible actors these little children are! They can surely teach a lesson in mastership certain "Hollywood stars". And as for the director Yuan Zhang - well, he had created a truly inspiring film!

So if you are looking for an interesting, deeply moving and allegorical story, this film is definitely worth seeing!

What a fantastic comedy! In my opinion its blend of satire and character comedy has made it one of the best comedy series on UK television. The acting is superb (Lionel Jeffries as Thomas Maddison, Ian Ogilvy as Richard Maddison and Brigit Forsyth as Harriet Maddison ), the humour is brilliant and yet it is pretty much impossible to find it anywhere in the shops or in the video rentals! I just hope that one day somebody from the TV programme managers will rediscover its amazing comedy value and they will show it again on national television! Because "Tom, Dick and Harriet" is - without a doubt of question - one of the greatest British TV comedies ever made!

I absolutely loved the movie and its wonderful soundtrack! The people who worked on this film managed to achieve such a brilliant result. Even more, I think it is a true masterpiece! The storytelling is very honest, poetic and quite erotic, it is full of very intense emotions and was played beautifully by all the actors!

I haven't seen such a brilliant and intelligent comedy for a very long time. Being afraid that all that's being made these days are thrillers and action movies, it was a relief to watch this fresh and by all means wonderful comedy!